The Toronto Raptors could sell HIGH on RJ Barrett this summer, but is it worth the talent downgrade?

The Toronto Raptors could sell HIGH on RJ Barrett this summer, but is it worth the talent downgrade?

On your Friday episode of Locked on Raptors, it’s likely going to be a quiet summer for the Toronto Raptors, but if something big does happen, it’s likely to involve RJ [Music] Barrett. You are Locked On Raptors, your daily Toronto Raptors podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. Hey, what’s going on and welcome to another episode of Locked On Raptors, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. It is Friday, May the 30th. And I am your host, Sean Woodley. I’ve been covering the Toronto Raptors now for 11 seasons on various platforms. You can find all my work over on Blue Sky. You can follow the show on Instagram. You can join us in the Locked On Raptors Discord server. Free as always. Link in the description of the podcast. Another thing is tonight I’m back on the mic for CBL games calling Niagara River Lions basketball on TSN Plus and CBL Plus. Go check it out. 7 p.m. tonight against the Saskatchewan Rattlers. I’ll be on the call with the Pal Joe Razos. So, please uh go tune in if you’re into some Canadian Elite basketball action. You should be. It’s really good stuff. Anyway, on today’s show, we are talking about the elephant in the room this off seasonason for your Toronto Raptors, which is what happens with RJ Barrett. There are cases for and against making a move involving sending RJ Barrett somewhere else this summer. I will outline those cases. I am very much like, you know, I’m supposed to come in here on the podcast with hard takes and strong opinions. And with this one, I kind of do see both sides of it. And I’m not going to be upset with any outcome here when it comes to R.J. But we will dig into the cases for and against moving him this summer. And if they are going to move him, we’ll look at some teams where things might line up for a trade to go down that is beneficial for both sides. I think that’s the only way this gets done. The Raptors are not just going to go dump RJ Barrett for nothing. It’s going to have to be in the interest of making the team better. So, we’ll get into that coming up later on. Let’s start off by laying out why RJ Barrett could very much be in play this summer. And look, I’m not putting any stock into the quote unquote reporting that came out this week from some scoop grifter on Twitter, a website that everyone should leave in order to save your brains. Uh, but I I I don’t think it takes a genius to piece together why an RJ deal this summer might be on the table, why it’s a possibility for the Raptors. Number one is his contract only has two years left and he might be at the peak of his value right now after a season in which you know the team didn’t perform very well but he put up really solid numbers. The counting stats were there. He had a pretty big burden. I think the efficiency was maybe downgraded because of the burden he carried but you know 21 five and six like that’s tough to find anywhere. And I could totally see teams around the league looking at that and saying, “Hey, maybe R.J. Barrett’s a fit for us.” And with just two years left on the contract, last year being a player option, by the way, and so there’s no guarantee that next season is not one where, you know, R.J.’s going to opt out at the end. I would bet against him opting out just based on what his role looks to be on this Raptors team next season. I don’t think he’s necessarily going to play himself into a gigantic contract. Of course, there’s extension possibilities and all that at any time, too. But I think with just the two years left, assuming he opts into the final year of his deal, this might be the peak of his value. And this is a time, you know, a thing for the Raptors. Like they’ve kind of messed up the timing on this with recent situations with contractual uh, you know, sort of limbo they’ve been in with guys like Pascal Seakum and Ojenobi and even Fred Van Vleet where they missed the window to trade guys at the peak of their value. And as a result, they hung on too long with, you know, very little intention obviously to keep those guys around and they painted themselves into a corner. If you want to keep RJ Barrett long term, by all means, like you can totally go and do that. Um, you know, if you intend to pay him, if that is your core intention as a franchise, then yeah, maybe there’s no need to go and move him this summer. But if you’re not going to pay him and just looking at the way the books are set up for this team and frankly just looking at how the team fits and works with and without RJ Barrett, I I think it’s a pretty fair guess to say the Raptors are not going to be the team that pays RJ Barrett his next contract. And if that’s the case, then now might be the time to strike while there might be some interest. And he’s again at the peak of his value with a couple of years potentially of team control. And look, you know, there’s all kinds of other stuff, too, right? Just beyond the the books. I know the books are kind of the thing in today’s NBA, you have to examine what the salary implications of everything is going to be and make your decisions that way. But I I think, you know, the onc court stuff with RJ Barrett, it also kind of paints the picture of a guy who maybe is a bit of an odd man out with how this team is built. This is a team that I think, you know, there’s a log jam first of all at the position he plays. And the guys behind him, I think all you could make an argument are more sort of snug fits basketball-wise alongside quickly, Ingram, Barnes, and Purle because there’s more shooting there because there’s more defense there or a blend of both in the case of Jacobe Walter. But I think Walter, Ochai, Baji, and Grady Dick, there’s a case to be made that all those three guys are more sensible fits as the fifth man in a starting five for the Raptors as early as next season than RJ Barrett. Of course, you know, I think there’s a case where RJ Barrett fits, and we’ll get into that in the case to not move him coming up in just a little bit here. But I I think if you are looking at the way this team is built, not just from the financial perspective, but just from, you know, you need shooting and defense around your core guys. It’s kind of the way you build basketball teams these days. Shooting is kind of a an open question with RJ. He’s eager to take him, which is great. When they come to him in the flow of the offense, he’s letting it fly. That’s half the battle. That’s awesome. But he fell down to around 35% from deep this year after being 39% during his stretch with the Raptors after he got traded here. And as a career kind of low30s three-point shooter, you know, guys can improve. I don’t think it’s like, you know, an unfixable thing with him. I think he can probably be a 37 30, you know, 37 and a half type% guy on reasonable volume, great. Like that’s there, but he hasn’t done it yet. And so if that’s not going to happen, that throws into question the fit and the defense. Obviously, there was like a twoe stretch this season where Scotty Barnes called everyone out and said, “You got to play harder on defense.” And RJ Barrett obliged that for a little bit, but for the most part, it was another pretty underwhelming season for RJ Barrett. And as a result, like his impact numbers don’t paint a super rosy picture about RJ Barrett’s impact on this team. He had the worst on-off differential among him. Emanuel Quickley, Scotty Barnes, and Yaka Purle. It was like a very slight positive, like a plus 1.1. All the other three guys were better than a plus three. Uh, you know, in terms of when they were on the floor versus when they were off, how the team performed. The offense was better when R.J. played, but not good. It was like 110 offensive rating when he played, 107 when he didn’t. So bad on both accounts, frankly. And the defense was better when he sat by a couple points per 100 possessions per NBA.com. Now, like again, there’s we’ll get into the case to not move him, but I do think like if you’re sitting there thinking, “Oh, there’s just no way they trade RJ this summer.” Like no, it’s like it’s on the table. It’s totally within the realm of possibility that RJ Barrett’s time in Toronto is already over and he’s played his last game here just because of the financial factors and the team building factors that are just things you have to consider when it comes to the second apron world in the NBA. Um this is an expensive team. You have Emanuel Quickley, Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes, Yaka Pertlaw making money. Um you’re going to eventually have to pay Grady Dick. You know that’s not too far off. He’s extension eligible after this coming season I believe. Um, and so you know, you know, is Ochiabaji gonna get paid? Is he going to be around? You have a first round pick coming in. How are they going to factor into the long-term picture with the books? Like you have to plan your books two, three, four, five years out. And again, I just keep coming back to, are they really going to pay RJ in a couple years time when you have this team and maybe they will, like maybe they keep R.J. and the team’s been successful and they are totally all right to keep him around. That’s a total possibility. We’ll talk about that more coming up. But I do think if you’re just reading where this is going, him being on the Raptors in two years time feels pretty unlikely to me for a bunch of different factors. And if that’s the case, again, you got to strike while the iron’s hot and try to get what you what you can for RJ Barrett. And I think the ideal sort of way to do it, we’ll talk about it, is to maybe kind of split his contract up to into a couple of different side salaries to fit into your books to balance your roster a little bit more. Like this is still a roster that needs more balance. R.J. Barrett might be the way to go and get that for you. It’s um it’s a tough thing. Like no one wants to see RJ Barrett just shipped aside coldly. Like I think it would suck, you know, on like a sort of spiritual level. He’s very clearly like ingrained in the city. He’s thrilled to be playing in Toronto. He’s a fan favorite and all of those are very valid reasons to want to keep him around. But I I don’t think the front office is going to sort of have all of that outweigh the picture of the books going forward because what your books like look like. It’s boring. It sucks. I wish the NBA weren’t like this, but it’s the league they’ve created. The way your books are set up is basically the indicator of whether or not you’re going to be successful or not. And to me, that’s where the RJ Barrett thing really becomes a sort of dangling thread that very well could get snipped off this summer and, you know, kind of turn into something else. But there’s also a case for it just to not do that, right? Like to keep RJ Barrett around. I’m not doing a trade for RJ Barrett unless it makes the Raptors a better basketball team. I’m not trading RJ Barrett for a package of picks and nothing and dead salary. It’s got to be a deal for a player or players that better set up this team for success, better set up the floor geometry, better balance the roster positionally and sizewise and all of that. We’ll get into why that if that’s not available, there’s a totally reasonable case for just hanging on to RJ Barrett. We’ll do that coming up in just one second. 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When any player scores 50 plus in a playoff game, Dash Pass members can grab a free threepiece cris crispy tenders combo from Wingstop the next day with a $20 order and code Wingstop 50. That’s Dashpass your door to more savings, more flavor, and more ways to win. Terms apply. Go check it out. Back at it here talking RJ Barrett and the case to not move RJ Barrett. By the way, before we get into that, uh, I forgot completely on yesterday’s podcast to announce the winner of the listener overunders contest. We will do that at the end of today’s show and unveil the champion for 2024-25 going home with a pair of tickets to a game next season. There was some drama at the top. It’s very juicy. Either way, let’s get into the case for holding off and just not trading RJ Barrett. And the number one thing is like we just haven’t seen this team play together, right? Like you don’t buy a product and then not use it and then just get rid of it until you know what the product has done for you. Like it it’s it seems premature to just be like well okay haven’t seen this team play together. We have no idea what it looks like with Brandon Ingram. Let’s just assume it’s not going to work and trade RJ Barrett. I mean there are reasons to look at and say yeah this might not work. This might not be a perfect fit. But there’s also reasons to look at it and say like hey this could actually maybe work if you squint. And I do think going into next season with RJ Barrett on the roster, barring a deal where you trade RJ plus stuff for Giannis Tentacmpo or some other star, but most likely Giannis, if there is going to be a star the Raptors pursue this summer, that’s probably the only one because of where they sit as a franchise and because of Messiah Jir’s obsession with Yiannisako. Um, but assuming that doesn’t happen, assuming there’s a different trade out there for R.J., Um I I I think the only way that you’re doing it is if again you’re you’re improving the team overall. But even if that’s the case, like I think keeping RJ is the most talentforward way to go into the season barring Yiannis trade, right? Where you know, whatever you trade R.J. for, it’s probably going to be for two lesser players who fill out the roster. If you just want to go in with the best collection of players you possibly can, having R.J. on the team and going into the team, you know, going into the year with him as the starting two guard and just kind of seeing how it works and seeing if if it fits. That’s probably the move. Of course, you run the risk there of if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit. You get to the deadline next year and you think, maybe we should try to trade RJ. Then you’ve gotten to this thing where, okay, he was at the peak of his value this past summer. He’s not played super well in this new context and now it’s the deadline and he’s got a year and a half left on his deal. Are we going to get what we really want for him? Like, that’s the consideration here. That’s the trade-off. they better be damn sure that it’s going to work with RJ Barrett. We do have some history of RJ Barrett looking really good alongside a not dissimilar collection of players to the ones he’s going to be playing with next season. You know, you have obviously Pascal Seakum, Scotty Barnes, Barrett quickly responsible for the best week of my life over the last four years watching basketball uh where they looked awesome. Yaka Purle obviously got hurt and it kind of nuked things but R.J. Bear looked good alongside that collection of players for a teensy tiny sample. Of course, you can’t go off of that entirely by any means. RJ did also look good when they had a brief stretch where it was quickly Barnes and Purle and no Seakum and they still had that month in February 2024 where they looked like a pretty real team and they had some nice results and they beat some good teams and they hung in with some other good teams and lost. Um, you know, R.J. was super efficient during that time. I I I think there’s reason to be at least mildly optimistic that a more streamlined role for R.J. Barrett can lead to an uptick in efficiency, which obviously he he saw a down tick in that this year over the course of a full season where he had a pretty immense burden on him after quickly got hurt and Barnes missed time early on. I think that had a direct result direct line from you know his better true shooting in the back part of 2023 24 to his worst true shooting this past year. Like that’s the clear reason for it is he was put into a position where he had to do too much. Had the ball in his hands too often. I think an RJ Barrett who’s putting up like 18 or 19 points and four boards and four assists as the fourth or fifth guy as a play finisher alongside Ingram who I think is like a better fitting version of Pascal Seakum with that collection of guys. Like that can work. That’s a lot of solid players who can do a little bit with the ball in their hands, keep possessions flowing, build one advantage into another. I don’t think it’s like it’s perfect certainly like there’s the shooting questions with Barrett like he’s got to be a great shooter for those lineups to make sense. He’s got to be eager to work off the ball which I think he can be. I think he has shown that he has a capacity for that in that back part of the season post trade. And like if that’s what the Raptors think they’re going to get out of RJ playing alongside Brandon Ingram where you just have these five pretty solid players, the fit being a little bit mad, but the talent just kind of overcomes and you have this really effective fiveman group that’s more than the sum of its parts, then yeah, keep RJ Barrett around and let’s see how it looks. Like I think there’s a fair amount of optimism to be had that it can work. You know, again, he got thrust into a way higher leverage role last year than he’s probably suited for with Quickly being out and Barnes and the rest of the season down the stretch. Like, I don’t know, R.J. was getting thrust into these lineups where it was just R.J. and a bunch of bench guys while Quickley and Barnes and Purle kind of had their minutes tethered together. So, his numbers are a little bit damaged by that. I still don’t think R.J.’s like the most um like productive slash impactful player in terms of driving winning basketball. I don’t think he does stuff, you know, in a context on his own that does it. But playing with other other good players around him, I think there’s something there. The defense obviously is a massive question. You know, can he be a 61% true shooting a guy again like he was at the back part of the the season where he got traded? I don’t know if that’s totally on the table. That was a really hot shooting stretch for him where he was banging threes at a high clip and he shot 72% at the rim during that stretch which is like kind of insane and a total outlier for his career. He shot 61% at the rim this past season, which was 26th percentile in the NBA per clean the glass. I think he’s probably capable of something closer to 65 66 at the rim considering last year the context was tough and people were selling out on his drives when he’s playing with more space and better players around him. He’s able to leverage the attention guys are getting on one side of the floor to do his stuff where he flies off of curls, catches at the nail, barrels to the rim. There’s less help waiting for him. I do think there is a more efficient rim score than we saw this past year somewhere within RJ within this context that we haven’t seen him play within just yet. But I think 72% of the rim is probably a little rich. That’s probably not happening. And then the free throws are like a real concern. Like he shot worse at the line than Yaka Purle this past season. It’s got to be better than that otherwise things get a little bit dicey here. You know, was fif it’s like 58% true shooting on the table for him. Yeah, totally. I think it is. And if that’s the case, he can be a 58, slightly above average true shooting guy who offers like medium defense, not even like lock down defense, but medium defense. We’ve seen the Raptors kind of no matter who they play at the one, two, three this season with Scotty Barnes and Yaka Purle on the floor, they were a good defensive team. Those two guys made them good at defense. Maybe that’s not sustainable over the course of another full season, but it was sustainable over the course of this entire season. And it’s not like they were out there with a bunch of other defensive ringers at the one, two, and three. I think Ingram’s going to help with the defense, with his length, cover up a little bit for Barrett. Um, I still think there’s like a solid on ball defender in Barrett. Like, I don’t think he’s a good offball defender. I think he loses his guy way too much. He gets back cut more often than you’d like and way more often than you’d like. It’s a real problem. But I think there’s a solid enough guy who can provide some resistance at the point of attack defensively to make it work. It’s just we haven’t seen it over the course of a full season yet. And so I think there’s a lot of fair skepticism for those who don’t think this is all going to work. You know, it’s also not some necessity now that they move R.J. to dodge the tax. Of course, we talked about this after the lottery where um them falling down in the lottery actually makes it easier to make the whole books thing work this summer going into next year. They don’t have to move R.J. just to duct the tax, which they might have had to if they jumped into the top four. Um, you know, and also I think if you jump in the top four, you’re taking a Dylan Harper or a VJ Edgecom or a Cooper Flag, you’re probably looking at the roster fit and saying, “Wow, R.J. really is kind of a sore thumb here. It doesn’t really work. We got to move R.J. now and also save some money to boot.” They don’t have to worry about that now. They can just take their guy at nine, fill in the rest of the roster with minimums, and they can bring back R.J. and be under the tax and be just fine. But um so like that’s another reason why you might just hold off and say hey like there’s not this financial necessity for us to do this. It was never a financial necessity before. Of course the billionaires can just pay the tax and it’s all good. Or you can just trade them at the deadline and get under the tax that way if you need to. But you know the the sort of big sort of sort of dams moneywise hanging over the team is no longer there because they fell down in the lottery. So that takes away the pressing need to move RJ as well. It’s um it’s tough man. Like again, I I I am of the mind that if you’re finding an upgrade to your roster, you got to examine it for sure, but I just don’t see there being like a very obvious fit out there. We’ll talk about a couple of possible trade options for the Raptors coming up in just a second here, but um I’m not like forcing the issue on RJ. If there’s a deal there, great. If there’s not, I’m fine to see what this looks like going into next year because there’s just enough in terms of tape, in terms of fit, in terms of theoretical oncourt basketball chemistry there for me to think, hey, maybe this can work. Maybe this can be fine. Maybe R.J.’s someone who becomes your first sub. He comes out early on and he runs your second unit or something like that. Didn’t go terribly well last year, but there’s also, I think, going to be a deeper bench on this team next season, too. And so, um, there’s ways to work around it. If the fit’s not perfect, get as much talent on the team as possible. figured out is usually a pretty good way to go about things. It’s a thing Messiah Jiri’s done time and time again dating back to his days in Denver. And keeping RJ Barrett is probably again barring a Giannis trade the best way to optimize how much talent raw pure good basketball playing talent is on the team going into next year. But if they are going to examine a trade and look at maybe one of those you split RJ into one two or three different contracts who fill out your roster, balance it a little better, give you some more functional depth. There are a couple options I think that make a lot of sense. The Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks in particular come to mind. We’ll get into that coming up in just a sec. Also hand out the winner of course of the overunders contest to close out the show. All right, back at it here on your Friday edition of Lockdown Raptors. Closing out the week with some RJ Barrett trade talk. And yeah, let’s kick around a couple of teams. Uh, one, it’s the Sacramento Kings. I’m actually going to be on Locked on Kings talking about RJ Barrett in the wake of the quote unquote reporting from this week regarding RJ Barrett. Um, and we’ll get into the possibility of a of a match there. If you want to go check out Locked on Kings, that’ll be probably later on today. You’ll be able to check that out. um make it your second listen of the day even. So with the Kings, like the Kings are the team you go to when you’re trying to win a trade, right? Like the Kings do dumb stuff all the time. The Kings undervalue their own guys. The Kings paint themselves into corners contractually. The Kings fire their coach and piss off their best player and then force a trade and all that stuff like that. Like the the Kings, of course, we know this well going back to the Rudy Gay days. Like if you can make a trade with the Kings, it’s probably going to benefit you. And so whenever there’s a trade possibility out there, I’m always kind of looking at what what do the Kings got? How can you poke around and make the Varana DV excited for a deal that might actually improve your team despite him thinking it improves his with the Kings? Like personally, I’m running the Kings. RJ Barrett, I would not be touching with a 100 foot pole because uh they have Demar Rosen and RJ Barrett sorry and Zack Lavine already and Deont Sabonis. It’s kind of a nasty gross fit to think about those three guys. Lavine, D Rozan, and Barrett plus Sabonis on a team. Poor Keegan Murray just kind of filling in gaps on that team. My god, that’s just like nasty, nasty ball. But I will say Matt George, our friend over at Locked on Kings, did reach out to me earlier this week and said to me verbatim, “The Kings are hungry for a player like RJ Barrett, which was like, okay, well, the Kings if they want things and yeah, like I’m I’m going to tend to believe that the Kings want things even if it’s maybe bad for them.” And so we’re just kind of kicking it around. We’ll we’ll throw some around some trade options for sure on the pod with uh with Matt unlocked on Kings later. But the deal that really stands out to me, there’s not a whole lot like the the way the books are set up for the Kings, there’s not a whole lot of optionality with deals you can make, but one that does stand out is Malik Monk and Yonas Valenunis works almost exactly salary-wise to match with RJ Barrett. Malik Monk, Valenunis for RJ Barrett straight up. That to me is a pretty interesting deal. Look, it makes the defense still a concern obviously. Uh Valen Chunis not exactly shutting dudes down at the rim. Never has. It’s not his bag. He’s an offensive rebounds and and you know, offensive um garbage buckets and post up stuff and you know, some roll action here and there type of guy. Um you know, certainly more of a backup center these days than a starter. You know, could totally use him as a backup center on this team. I think he’d be an awesome back backup to fill in for Yakob Purle who you don’t also feel obligated to play 20 minutes a game. You can play your Scotty Barnes at five lineups and things like that to get creative around him. Um, and you know, Valenunas can just kind of be there as insurance if someone like Purle goes down. You just have, hey, let’s throw another seven foot large guy in there to be our screen setter, drinkster stir, maybe throw some passes from the elbow, stuff like that. Um, you know, that I think would be a really nice back stop to the backup center situation we’ve talked about for a while. When it comes to Malik Monk, look, defensively, not any great shakes, though I do think he’s not terrible. Uh, and offensively, he’s awesome. Like, he’s such a dynamic, creative presence. I mean, I think one of the more slept on just pure individual counting stats of the last couple seasons is Malik Monk’s like a five or six assists a game guy now playing off the bench. He’s not your classic gunner who comes in and only shoots and gets two assists and then calls it a day. No, he’s coming in and he’s like running effective offense. And if you could get Malik Monk on this team, who I just think is a bit more of a dynamic, creative type than RJ Barrett, who would also allow you to play Monk off the bench or hey, maybe you play quickly off the bench at times. You know, you can kind of fiddle around with that. I think you’re probably starting quickly because you’re paying him more, but certainly some optionality there if you wanted to have Monk be your sort of lead guard. Um, but you could start an Oiabaji and feel a little better about it and then have yourself, you know, some balance in that starting five, the defense at two with AI, the three-point shooting he brings to the table. You bring in Malik Monk to just kind of tie your whole second unit together. Run him out there with Jamal Shed and Jacobe Walter and Grady Dick and Jonathan Mobo or whoever you draft this year and all of a sudden like that’s a deep really functional team that can kind of have no drop off when you’re going to your bench guys. You can sprinkle in Monk with starters. You can close with Monk sometimes. I think at times you’ll be able to roll a Monk quickly back court which would be crazy dynamic and you’d have Ingram and Barnes and Purle as like this big three four five to offset the smaller front court although Malik Monk’s like 6’5 he’s not you know a tiny guy himself I I think that would be a really fun fit and would really juice up the offense for the Raptors for sure and if the Kings are amendable to something like that which I don’t think they should be I think Malik Monk is probably in a vacuum a better more dynamic player than RJ Barrett at least he’s more elite on one end than RJ Barrett is. U but if the Kings are open to it, I think that’s a deal you got to try to get over the finish line. I think that would be a really nice snug fit for the Raptors. And again, it turns RJ Barrett into two rotation guys, which I think, you know, having functional depth, it’s going to be a real strength for this team next year. Double down on that strength. Have just a lot of good players to help survive a season with. Put yourself in position to have a higher seed come playoff time. Maybe you’re a four, five, or six seed with that roster. I think that’s totally on the table. that feels like a team that can flirt with 50 wins. Um, the other team that comes to mind, and I was chatting with our pal Nick Angstad from Lockdown Mavs this morning, uh, is the Dallas Mavericks. They could use some offense in the back court. Uh, that’s pretty clear. They are very frontcourtheavy. They have like three centers between Lively, Gaffford, and Anthony Davis. Cooper Flag is likely going to play the four or the three or whatever. Like, he’s a front court player obviously. Kyrie Irving is out with the injury next season. um probably at least until what February. It’s a knee injury he’s dealing with, right? Um it’s not going to be a quick return for him. And RJ Barrett, we’ve seen this year, can be an innings eater. He can be someone who, yeah, maybe you’re not going to be like the most beautiful offense in the world with him, but I think defensively you could certainly get by with R.J. on the floor and Lively plus Davis plus uh Cooper Flag out there to kind of fill in the back lines. That sounds like a pretty great way to offset RJ Barrett’s deficiencies on the defensive end. And so is there a deal where the the the Mavs get their sort of stop gap creative guy who can then sort of move to more of an offball role once Kyrie gets back in RJ Barrett and the Raptors can go and get themselves some real depth to fill out lineups and add some size and length and in this case even a little bit of shot creation as well or self creation you know quick microwave buckets. The deal that I kicked around with our pal Nick this morning in a little chat was originally it was Naji Marshall plus Daniel Gaffford for RJ Barrett. Um, and Nick was intrigued. You know, R.J. kind of checks the boxes of what the Mavericks are looking for this offseason. They’ve like explicitly said out loud they’re looking for a scoring creating guard type that can carry the offense with some some with Kyrie out then play next to Kyrie. That’s a direct quote from Nick who’s very in the know about the NA about the Mavericks. Um the addition to the trade he made was Jaden Hardy coming as well in addition to Gaffford and Marshall to the Raptors. Jaden Hardy, a nice three-point shooting, you know, kind of microwave scoring bench guard who doesn’t play a ton but puts up solid numbers when he does. He makes six million bucks a year for the next three seasons. It’s not a crazy number to be dealing with. And it the deal brings back like an extra $1.6 million to the Raptors, which you know, where there’s a will, there’s a way you can make it work. Maybe they just don’t use their 39th pick. They trade that off. They sell it or something like that. Um, and then just, you know, replace that minimum contract with these three guys you’re bringing in to fill out the roster. That’s a totally functional and way, you know, perfectly fine way to do it. You know, the cap nerds can get out there and yell at me if you want. If there’s a will, there’s a way they can make it work. But Marshall, Gaffford, and Hardy for Barrett, maybe it seems light because none of those guys individually are awesome, but the idea of the Raptors with, you know, either Abaji or Dick or Walter starting and then you have Marshall as this bench wing who can come in be this defensive presence for you. Maybe he fills in in some lineups where maybe you take you move Ingram to the two or something and Marshall becomes your sort of defensive three on the wings. He had a rough shooting season last year. That’s the one concern with Marshall. Um, but you know, he also shot 38% the year prior. So, who’s to say? You know, 28% 38%. Does he net out in the middle somewhere? 33 34. Is that passable as a bench wing? Totally. Considering the defense he brings to the table. Daniel Gaffford as a backup center would be awesome. Like, he’s not quite the sort of change of pace big that um I think the Raptors should really use in, you know, more of a stretch option to behind Yaka Purle, but as more of a vertical lob threat than Yaka Purle. I think there’s enough differentiation there in terms of how he plays and Purle plays. they’d be fine having those two guys eating up your center minutes on, you know, on a night-to-ight basis. That sounds all right. And then Jaden Hardy just as an extra guy to who who can help create off the bench. Sounds pretty good to me. 6’4, he’s not super small. He can come in, he can run the second unit offense. You know, again, leave Jamal Shed to play more off ball and, you know, do his defense thing. Like there’s there’s something there. So that’s the other pitch is the Mavericks. We’ll talk about some more, I’m sure, if RJ Barrett trade talk kind of heats up. But having talked with both of our lockdown hosts for lockdown kings and lockdown mavs, doesn’t sound like I’m totally off base with either of those potential frameworks for deals. And I think both of those would satisfy what I think is the is what you got to do if you’re trading R.J. is you got to make the team better. And I think both of those would improve the overall state of the team even if they might limit the overall talent. Although I think Monk probably does. Monk is really talented guy. I’d be super into that. Man, let’s uh leave it there. And I’m sorry to those who love R.J. who just had to listen to me talk for 30 minutes about training R.J. Um, I know it’s a tough topic for some people because people love R.J. and I’m I’m I’m right there. I like R.J. a lot. I I just got to be realistic here, I think, with the way this team is built. But let’s close it out by revealing the winner of this year’s lockedown Raptors overunders and props contest listener competition. Of course, our pal VC won this year. We did it on Wednesday if you want to go listen to that show. It’s a fun one. Taking up our overunders picks from the year. This was a for a second here, I thought we were gonna have ourselves like a an an eightp person tie for first place. That was all going to come down to the uh the tiebreaker question, which was how many total points does Alra Shamsh score for Raptors 905 this year. Thankfully, it didn’t have to go to that. We have one clear winner, but I want to shout out those who finished second in a tie with 13 points from a possible 18 in this year’s overunders contest. Brandon Wilcox, Jaylen Marikar, Colton Row, Jeffrey Handel, Gary Woo, Ben Chapman, Daniel Pru, and uh those who listen to the show might know Joe Develin, Cause from the Discord, all tied at 13. Uh Cause was on the show recently, the winner of the Lockdown Raptors Fantasy League. Thank god he didn’t win this too. Would have been awful. Uh either way, you have those eight people tied for second place. Well done by y’all with 13 points. But with 15 points out of a possible 18, totally nailed it. Graham Vanderveck is your winner this year of the Locked on Raptors overunders in props contest, joining previous champions Blair Weston and Jeffrey Richardson in the hallowed halls of the listener contest uh champions row. Congrats to Graham. You’re going to a game on me next year. a couple of tickets, we’ll get you set up. And uh yeah, awesome stuff. And uh thanks to everyone for contributing and and taking part. It’s always a lot of fun to take up these listener responses. Uh should I give out a a shout to our our uh Mr. or Mrs. irrelevant at the bottom here? Few total points. There were two and it’s all right because I they still scored more points than I did in this exercise where I scored three points. Yes, I scored fewer points than everybody who did this. Great. Awesome. Having a good time. But with five points, bringing up the rear, Ethan Pernell and Aiden Hall, five out of 18 points for last place here. Um, you know, again, still better than me. So, well done and I’m never doing this again. Either way, thank you so much for rocking with the show. We’ll be back again on Monday, of course, to uh, you know, I don’t know, do some more draft stuff and talking about some trade stuff. That’s it’s that that time of year, baby. Talking draft and trade stuff. It’s uh, the draft’s getting closer. Be like three plus weeks away as of next week. probably get into a mock draft or a mock board of mine, an updated board at some point very soon here as well. But in the meantime, please follow, subscribe, rate, review, tell a friend, join the Discord, check me out on CBL Plus and TSN Plus tonight for River Lions and Rattlers and the CBL. And uh yeah, have yourselves a wonderful rest of your weekend. Thanks for hanging. Bye-bye. Oh my god. Air.

If the Toronto Raptors don’t intend to keep RJ Barrett around long-term, this summer could be the ideal time to trade him at the peak of his value. In Episode 1878, Sean Woodley goes solo to outline the cases for and against the Raptors moving on from the local fan favourite this summer. Off the top, Sean gets into the case in favour of finding a taker for Barrett this summer when he might be at the absolute peak of his value as a trade asset, coming off a productive season and with a couple years left to go on his deal. That, plus the concerns about his fit within the new-look Raptors post-Brandon Ingram all point towards him being a potential trade piece this offseason. Next, Sean outlines the case against trading Barrett, why keeping Barrett on the roster is probably the best way to optimize the team’s overall talent quotient going into next year, and why it seems a little premature to break up a version of the team we haven’t even seen play together yet. Lastly, Sean takes a look at the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks as a pair of potential trade partners in the event Barrett is on the market. Could a Barrett swap of Malik Monk and old pal Jonas Valanciunas be realistic? Could Dallas offer some more helpful depth in exchange for Barrett, who could certainly have a large offensive role next season with Kyrie Irving sidelined for most of the season? Plus, Sean announces the winner of this year’s Over/Unders & Props listener contest!

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