[Koreen] Barring a major jump from Barnes and/or Siakam as shooters, and a giant overall leap from Barnes, Anunoby or Gary Trent Jr., the Raptors becoming a top-six team became less likely, not more so, with VanVleet’s departure. That necessitates seeing what is out there for Siakam.
by EarthWarping
20 Comments
Did that guy also predict the sun will rise tomorrow? What a genius!
We know
You know
We know you know we know
Some interesting tidbits from Koreen:
>**The talks concerning Siakam focussed on the second or third picks with Charlotte and Portland were real, if not ever close to yielding a deal. And if Siakam’s camp leaked the distaste for signing an extension to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report, it was as much the junior varsity version of Damian Lillard’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, trying to get his client to a preferred location as it was about Siakam’s affinity for Toronto — which is very real, by the way. In the modern NBA, that is part of an agent’s job.**
>**The Raptors are assessing the market for Siakam, which is a front-office’s job when you have a disappointing team. It became especially likely once VanVleet departed for Houston, with the option of simply running it back gone.**
>**That doesn’t mean trading him. There have been bigger team-player gulfs than the one between the Raptors and Siakam. If the Raptors don’t like what is out there for Siakam, they are very likely to engage extension talks with the forward. Haynes’ report said he would prefer to stay in Toronto, and it’s not hard to understand how a four-year, $192-million extension would make him feel very wanted, even if that’s lacking now.**
>Expect this to get resolved sooner rather than later.
>Speaking of which, the Raptors are not seriously listening to offers for Anunoby right now.
>**There are two scenarios in which I could see that changing. One is if he tells the Raptors he is unhappy in Toronto and will not consider re-signing with the Raptors, which is unlikely to happen because … money. The second is if Siakam signs an extension with the Raptors.**
>… Jerami Grant’s five-year, $160-million deal would be an obvious point of comparison.
>**If you conclude in advance that the three wings aren’t an ideal fit, and that paying them their market worth limits how good you can be, maybe you move Anunoby for the most cost-controlled value you can get. (In fact, that is a big part of Siakam trade talks, too.)**
>As for Harper, well, funny story. Raptors general manager Bobby Webster was sitting in front of me as the Raptors played the Cavaliers last week, and I asked what was up with Harper’s contractual situation. Webster pointed to his right and told me to ask his agent, the man sitting right beside him.
>Drew Gross was not in a greater rush to tell me what was going on with Harper than Webster, it turns out. If I had to guess, Harper will wind up accepting the qualifying offer and return as a two-way player. Teams have three such slots this year, so that could mean another training camp battle for the final spot next to Harper and Markquis Nowell.
Koreen is implying Siakam basically screwed the Raptors from getting Scoot.
Can’t be mad at him, he’s looking out for himself and his money, which any one of us would do his situation.
These takes are so dumb man. Freddy straight up did not play well last year. If the ball was in his hands less and had less of Fred taking hero shots 5 times a game they would have won more games. Plain and simple. This reminds me of idiot fans in the playoffs using the excuse, “X player was hurt, if we had them we would have easily won the series”, meanwhile his replacements went 8-12 from 3.
Just because a player SHOULD be better doesn’t eliminate off years or shooting slumps.
I don’t get why OG is untouchable in trade talks. Some desperate team could very easily offer him the max next year like what Houston did to FVV.
Koreen penciling $180 million for OG like that is obvious is a bit suspect.
It’s pretty wild how the opinions on FVV vary from “addition by subtraction” to “unlikely to become top 6.”
I know people out there are desperate to trade Siakam ASAP for god knows why, but let’s be real here:
The only 1st rounders teams will want to give up first would be for this upcoming season, and that’s because the draft pool is considered **very** poor. Trying to sell Siakam high at this juncture will only land us picks for this draft and prob some filler. I don’t see many teams wanting to drop young prospects at this current time. Masai would have to play hard ball for sure.
But you also have to take into account that, aside from this 2024 pick that’s top 6 protected – if the Spurs get this pick, we own **ALL** our picks up to 2031 and beyond. Anything we get for Siakam will be a plus, and we also have a window to rebuild due to the ages of our young players.
And THAT being aside – this dude is averaging All-Star/All-NBA numbers and **wants** to stay here. So fans wanting to drive this dude out is giving me a headache lol
In the end, I think this all leads Siakam to sign a non-max extension and stay in Toronto. The fit issues were only fit issues because the team struggled. No one was talking fit issues the year prior and the Raps were a popular pick to upset the Sixers in round 1 (Scottie’s injury and that fluke shot by Embiid) swung what could’ve been an even closer series to them.
The FO will let Darko play this team and if they show promise then the scenario above takes place or even a max and if they struggle then those offers will still be there at the deadline.
Top 6 won’t happen for a while. Gonna be a long year…..
Title gore…
If Otto comes back and Grady can knock down 3s there is no reason we can’t be much better this year
Update the sky is blue…
Embiid to the Raps + Spicy P.
Cameroon 🇨🇲
Koreen speaking the truth!!
Most of this sub Reddit smokes lots of crack and thinks Barnes will magically become a shooter.
Raptors media still in their feeling about Freds departure I see
If you can’t be top 6, you gotta be bottom 6.
Because I can just imagine the evil grin on Adam Silver’s face when he reads out:
“The 7th overall pick, coming from the Toronto Raptors will be for the San Antonio Spurs”.
we coulda had scoot but pascal intentionally tanked his value. oh boy. lol
I wonder if the team might play better when the PG isn’t JACKING up stoopid shots all game. We’ll see