REPORT: Giannis Antetokounmpo & Toronto Raptors have “mutual interest” | Could it really happen?!

REPORT: Giannis Antetokounmpo & Toronto Raptors have “mutual interest” | Could it really happen?!

On your Monday episode of Locked On Raptors, we still don’t talk about Giannis on this podcast unless the insiders are doing it. 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 podcast network, your team every day. It is Monday, June the 2nd, and I am your host Sean Woodley. I’m cover the Toronto Raptors now for 11 seasons on various platforms. You can find all my work over on Blue Sky. You can find the show on Instagram. You can join us, of course, in the Lockdown Raptors Discord server, which is definitely not talking about Giannis today. a 100% free to join. Come be part of our listener community. Link in the description of the podcast. As always, today’s show it’s brought to you by our friends over at Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code lockmbba at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. And on today’s show, we will a little later on um sort of air some grievances regarding Pascal Seakum making the conference or the NBA finals and winning Eastern Conference Finals MVP, which is all awesome. But the retconing of the Raptor Seakum divorce, that’s annoying to me. We’ll talk about that a little bit later on. But off the top, we are going to get into some Giannis stuff because yes, this podcast does not talk about Giannis Tintoopa because it’s not happening. There’s just no way. But when Brian Windhorst says stuff, when Doug Smith and the Toronto Star drops little lines with information that are, you know, going to get spun out of control by every aggregator in the world, we got to do our due diligence here. So, we will talk about the latest Giannis Tentacmpo scuttlebutt. Uh, and we’ll get into the question of what is too much to give up for Giannis if you’re the Toronto Raptors. Let’s start by reviewing the reports slash uh comments slash I don’t know if it’s full-on reports it’s just again rumors noise subtrifuge etc etc Brian Winhorst on the episode of the hoop collected that dropped I guess yesterday last night this morning whatever uh talking about the NBA finals uh the topic of Pascal Seakum came up which we’ll get into a little bit later on as well but off of that Brian Windhor did his Brian Windhorse thing and just kind of subtly alluded to the Raptors. Yeah, like they’re kind of hunting for big fish. That’s like the the league is aware that they’re kind of poking around on stuff trying to find a big fish this summer. Um which I don’t know if it’s a terribly huge surprise considering Giannis Tindo is going to be available and or potentially he’s going to be available. We don’t know that for sure just yet. He hasn’t declared that he wants out of Milwaukee and we’ll talk about why that’s a pre prerequisite for anything to happen. But um you know when when Brian Windhor says stuff it’s clearly there’s something going on. There’s something in the uh information channels of the NBA suggesting the Raptors are poking around and two and two together. Giannis has been a guy that Msiajiri has fond over for over a decade. He might be the single biggest star available this summer. Maybe the only real star available this summer. Um at least only obvious one. And yeah, it might be that the Raptors try to go and pursue that for sure. Makes a lot of sense. Um, then Doug Smith in his mailbag in the Toronto Star over the weekend had a little just a little quip, little line at the end of his piece answering a question about Giannis from from a reader uh just kind of said, “Yeah, uh, there’s mutual interest between the Raptors and the Bucks, sorry, the Raptors and Giannis and Takmpo of potentially linking up with one another.” That’s interesting. If there’s mutual interest, for sure. Um, you know, that is, I think, one thing that you would definitely need for Giannis end up at Toronto is for him to put Toronto on a list of teams that he wants to go to because, you know, obviously I think the Bucks are going to try their best to facilitate a move that he’s happy with considering all he’s given to that franchise. Um, but also, you know, the Raptors don’t have the number one clear best package out there. We’ll talk about that here, too. And you know, in order for this to happen, you would have to think that Giannis handpicking the Raptors or putting them on a short list of teams has to be sort of step one for the Bucks considering what the Raptors might have on offer. So, look, these reports, this this noise, this slop, shout out to our friends at at, you know, ball. Like, this doesn’t change anything to me. Like, this really does just kind of, you know, add more fuel to the fire, all that stuff. add more smoke to everything. But overall, like I don’t think this really changes what we kind of know regarding Giannis and the Raptors. We know that Messiah has long been after him. We know the Raptors have some potential maneuverability with, you know, contract flexibility and all their picks available this summer. And we know that there are other teams out there that if they really want to go and make this a full-scale bidding war, are probably going to have more to offer the Milwaukee Bucks than the Toronto Raptors. And I don’t think any of this changes that. Um, you can reference back to my episode a few weeks ago with Camille Davis from Locked on Bucks. We talked about the whole landscape of the Giannis situation. And obviously, this all hinges on whether or not Giannis actually says to Milwaukee, “Please trade me. I want out.” If he doesn’t do that, the Bucks ain’t doing it. The Bucks are not moving on if Giannis doesn’t explicitly say, “Get me out of here now.” And he just might not do that. You know, we haven’t heard it happen yet. Maybe it still will, but that is sort of the first domino that has to fall fall here. Then for the Raptors to really be in the mix here, a couple other things have to happen. You have to have some other teams with better packages to offer. Get cold feet. Um, you know, the the Oklahoma City Thunder are probably the team that has the most stuff if they really wanted to do it to go call up the Bucks and say, “Hey, here’s everything for Giannis. Let’s make this happen.” If the the Thunder decided to get involved with their hoorde of draft picks and their young players, they probably are the leaders in the clubhouse to get it done. They’re in the NBA finals. They have what looks like a very long runway set up for this team. They’re not trading for Giannis this summer. It would be a deeply unlook Oklahoma City Thunderesque thing to do. And had they lost in the second round to Denver, maybe there’s an an open window of opportunity for that to happen. They’re in the finals. They’re the favorites to win the finals. I don’t think anything is happening to change the core of that Thunder team going forward. So, if they’re off the board, then you okay that there’s some more teams that maybe the Raptors can try to hang with, but still, I think two teams outside of Toronto have the edge if they really want to come correct to the table with everything on offer for Giannis. The first of those teams is the Houston Rockets who have the allimportant Phoenix Suns picks for the future. like two or three of them going forward. Unprotected Phoenix Suns picks which will be highly prized. One would think if the Milwaukee Bucks are moving on from Giannis. The Bucks do not have their own picks. A reminder, they cannot just trade Giannis and tank. They have to be shorting other teams around the league. And you probably don’t want to be shorting the team you’re sending Giannis to because the Bucks know better than anybody else that simply having Giannis on your team is going to win you in the mid-40s at the very least. you’re not going to be a bad bottom of the league team barring some catastrophic injury. The Bucks this year were kind of a mess. Not very deep. A whole lot of AJ Green and Gary Trent Jr. and they still won 48 games. Like Giannis is just a cheat code to make you above 500. And so if you’re sending him to a team, you probably don’t want to be betting against that team, at least in the immediate future, with the hope of your entire rebuild hinging upon that team failing. And so that is the edge the Rockets have over the Raptors. I know I’ve relitigated this before. Maybe there’s new folks tuning in looking for the lay of the land on this. The Rockets, if they come and put those Suns picks on the table, plus whatever young players, whether it’s Aman Thompson, Jaylen Green, Alprren Shenun, some combination of them, those Suns picks are involved, you have to think that’s going to be the offer the Bucks are most eager to take because they need those bets against teams that are likely not going to be good in the next few years because they don’t have their own picks to use and tank with. Then you have the Spurs who of course move it up to number two in the draft lottery. And if they want to put out that second overall pick and say, “Hey, you know, we can’t offer you the same like quality of picks necessarily, though we do have picks from like the Wolves a few years out and the Hawks and some other teams like the Kings. There’s a pick in there. Um, you know, if they want to go and say, “Hey, yeah, we can’t give you those amazing picks down the line, but hey, we give you the second pick in this draft and get you Dylan Harper and you can kind of start your rebuild around him day one. You just draft Dylan Harper and move on.” that hey, maybe that’s something the Bucks find attractive as well. I still think the Spurs, if they’ve really wanted to do it, have more to offer than the Raptors that would interest the Bucks. And then I think the Raptors are right there in that next tier of teams. There’s the the the Nets out there, for example. I don’t think they’re going to get into it because if they trade for Giannis, they will have no one for Giannis to play with at all. It’ll be a whole lot of Giannis plus I don’t know, Cam Thomas, Giannis plus uh Dron Sharp. like no, I I don’t think the Nets are in a position to make this trade and actually have it benefit them going forward. And I do think the Raptors are very much in that next tier of teams with their likely offer that centers around Scotty Barnes, probably RJ Barrett for salary matching and then all the picks the Bucks want. And we’ll get into in just a second here whether that is too much to offer for the Raptors based on where they’re at and what actually would constitute like the happy medium offer. It’s not too much. It’s not too little. It kind of satisfies the Bucks while also setting the Raptors up for some success worthy to land Giannis. We’ll get into that to continue to show coming up in just one second. Today’s show is brought to you by my friends over at Monarch Money. Ever check your bank account and wonder where did all my money go? Between dining out, online shopping, and entertainment, it’s easy to lose track. That’s where Monarch Money comes in. Your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances. 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Back at it here on your Monday edition of Locked on Raptors talking Giannis even though we don’t talk about Giannis on the podcast. Uh building off of the Brian Windhor Doug Smith scuttlebutt. Uh Doug Smith noted in there that there’s mutual interest between Giannis and the Raptors and that the wild card is the cost. Obviously, like this is what it’s all going to come down to. If the Raptors are in the mix here, they’re going to have to be willing to pay up because again, the Milwaukee Bucks, like there’s no incentive for the Bucks here to just trade Giannis for a poo poo platter of stuff. They don’t have their own picks. having Giannis on their team like they’re they’re one way or another they’re kind of set up for a few dark years just as like you know the post Giannis era like it’s going to be tough. They don’t have their own picks. They don’t have a lot of young players. It’s going to be a grim few seasons in Milwaukee no matter what the return for Giannis is in all likelihood. And so when you’re staring down that reality, you know, you could have your next five years be grim without Giannis or you can just keep him and have your next five years be grim with Giannis if he’s into it. if he’s not agitating for a move explicitly. And so you’re going to have to pay up. And there have been reports of John Horse, the GM with the Bucks, wanting to bleed the other team dry wherever he sends Giannis. Of course, he’s going to say that. That’s a great public negotiating tool. It’s not going to be a report out there saying John Horse is willing to accept nothing for Giannis. Of course, you got to kind of think of where all of these um agendas lie when you hear, you know, reporting and stuff come out like this. Um, but when it comes to the cost for the Raptors, look, I think if you can get Giannis, you just got to get Giannis. There’s almost not a cost enough to make me kind of turn my nose up at it because he’s Giannis. Even if it doesn’t make you a day one instant contender, and it just might in the Eastern Conference, let’s be clear, he stinks. Even if it doesn’t do that, the mere idea of having Giannis play for the Toronto Raptors is tantalizing and fun and interesting enough for me to have a really hard time coming to a point where like I just think on like pure price you could overpay for Giannis Dumpo. Obviously, you could get super ridiculous and you know, but like in terms of like realistic outcomes here, I don’t think you can really overpay for a guy who is no worse than the third best player alive and is still very much at the peak of his powers. Um, the problem is you have to do all you can to optimize the roster that Giannis is coming to. And that is where the price comes into play here. I don’t see there being a move here that does not involve Scotty Barnes at a minimum. There’s for a few reasons. One, the salary matching is just way easier with him. If you make the trade after July 1st when his new deal is kicked in, the salary matching gets so much easier. It can just be Scotty plus one other guy, probably RJ Barrett, and you can make it work financially before you throw in all the sweeteners, picks, young players, etc., etc. Um, if it’s not Scotty, then you know, Brandon Ingram’s involved. I don’t think that makes a lot of sense because I think Brandon Ingram in theory is like an excellent fit next to Giannis. We just saw Chris Middleton, a big creative wing with some mid-range pop and some self-creation juice, be an absolutely perfect co-pilot for Giannis Tentacmpo in Milwaukee. And I think Brandon Ingram would be, I think, an essential figure on a potential Giannis Raptors team in order to optimize him, optimize the window with Giannis in Toronto. So, yeah, I don’t think Ingram is involved, even if it’s I’m not sure if it’s 100% legal because you just sign his extension. Um, but I don’t one way or another, legal or not. I just don’t think that makes sense for either side here. Um, you know, I don’t think Emanuel Quickley is going to be part of the piece here going out just because like you need to have like competent guard play skills and Quickly is not a top of the league level guard or anything like that. But playing next to Giannis, playing next to Ingram, it’d be damn helpful to have his shooting, his again baseline competence as a ball handler, run pick and roll, that type of stuff, like you got to have that on your team. We’ve seen this team be so light on guard talent for years now. And I just don’t see a world in which you’re building a team with Scotty and Giannis and Yaka Purle and not having a point guard on a team. Like even if he’s not your traditional point guard, I think he’s closer to that than people give him credit for. Um you know, that’s just not a uh a functional team build. And again, like if you trade for Giannis, you’re not going to have like a ton of other options and moves ready to line up for you. It’s not to say they’ll never be able to make trades or improvements on the roster. They will have that ability as time goes on. You go through multiple transaction cycles. You know, more picks become available down the line as the years go on. They’ll have means by which to improve the team. But if you trade for Giannis, like that’s your big swing. That is most of your ammo going out the door. You better have a pretty ready-made team to go and at least be competitive. Um, you know, I don’t think it has to be a trade where you’re like, we have to win the championship next season or anything like that. This isn’t the Kawawaii deal. This would be more of a long game play where you give yourself at least a few years while Giannis is still in his prime to continue to build around him and tinker and adjust the roster and all of that. Um, you know, hopefully young guys improve, etc., etc. And by two, year two, year three, year four of him in Toronto, maybe you’re like a full-fledged inner circle contender because you’ve made the right moves and you’ve kept enough on the roster. But one way or another, they’re not going to have a ton more flexibility if you bring Giannis in for financial reasons, for again just not having the assets to go make more moves. And so whatever the return is, whatever you sending out, it can’t be so much that it tilts the balance away from the team being functional once you finally land Giannis on your team. Um, I really think, again, I’ve pitched this on the show, I think if a trade happens here, R.J. plus Scotty as the baseline of the package just makes way too much much sense. RJ plus Scotty for Giannis and Bobby Portoris who has player option going into this summer. Maybe picks it up to help facilitate this along. Maybe picks it up because I’m not sure anyone’s paying Bobby Portoris this summer. Um but that works just as a pure salary matching piece before you throw in picks and then young players obviously will have to get considered here as well. Um but that makes sense to me. Scotty plus RJ. You bring Giannis back. You run out essentially a team with Quickley and Ochai Abaji a really nice fifth starter I think in this context uh Brandon Ingram Yakapurle Giannis then your bench you’ve got Jamal Shed hoping he makes a step or two in the years to come Jacobe Walter Grady Dick Jonathan Mobo Jameson Battle in this case Bobby Portoris and then you fill out the rest of the roster with minimums and stuff like that team is good enough to be a 50 plus win team in the Eastern Conference next season I think Giannis is that good there’s enough depth there. Um, obviously, you know, injuries and stuff can happen, but I think Giannis is good enough to carry that team to at least a middle tier playoff seed in the Eastern Conference, comfortably in the top six. Beyond that, yeah, like you have to really hope for internal growth. And that is why in this instance, like this is again price-wise, if Jacobe Walter or Grady Dick need to be involved in that deal, fine. Like, it makes sense 100%. I get why the Bucks would say that and they wouldn’t be wrong to say they got to be involved. But that’s kind of where I started to get cold feet a little bit if I’m the Raptors because the internal growth and development of that second or that, you know, your second year guy and Grady Dick going into year three, Jacobe Walter, a rookie going into year two, their capacity for internal growth over the years is one of your single best ways to theoretically improve the team around Giannis. And if those guys are gone, one or both, then I think a your roster gets a little thinner. You know, you’re you’re trading away more roster players to bring one back. kind of um reversing the depth they’ve kind of built over the last year and a half here and really putting all your eggs in the Giannis basket and hoping that you can get lucky in the second round and with undrafted free agents and whatever picks you do have in the coming years. Like that’s a lot. That’s a lot to ask for. It’s a lot of leaving stuff up to hope. If you’ve got Walter and Dick on the team and you’ve just gone Scotty plus RJ plus a bunch of picks, I think that is kind of the sweet spot. Again, if it’s one of Walter or Grady, I think you probably just have to do it because it’s Giannis, but it’s uh like, and again, it’s not a that’s too much to pay for Giannis type of thing because it’s not. You pay for Giannis. He’s one of the best players alive. This is what we do this for. This is why you build basketball teams. But you do have to consider what the remaining roster looks like. And they would have to have a pretty clear idea of how they’re going to fill in the rest of the spots. Have a line on some minimum guys and know they’re bringing back or able to bring in, you know, know what they can do with Chris Buché, etc., etc., Like it’s not easy, but I do think there’s a team there that is good enough if they can just do the RJ plus Scotty thing that they can very comfortably run into the next few years and think, hey, we’re going to be good now and there’s a capacity for us to be better in two, three years from now as well. And then hey, maybe those guys become people you trade or, you know, in future subsequent trades, things like that. Um, if you’re able to hang on to them and hey, again, if the Bucks say no, we’re not doing this. If you don’t give us Walter or Dick, then you probably just give one of those guys up and make your peace with it. I’m not against anyone who thinks that’s maybe too much because the roster left behind won’t be amazing, but I’m also of the mind like get Y Giannis on the basketball team. Sounds really fun to me. I don’t know how many more years are we going to do this organized sports thing anyway. Have you seen the world? Like I don’t know. If we can enjoy some fun here watching Giannis play for Toronto and all that comes with it, uh maybe it’s worth it no matter the cost. Either way, still don’t think this is happening. Uh, it’s like I I think there’s maybe a more of a percentage chance for it happening now, at least in my mind, than there was when, you know, say on lottery night when I thought them dropping to nine on the lottery kind of ruined any chance of them being in the mix here. It seems like maybe Houston and San Antonio might get cold feet. Maybe the Raptors do come in with the biggest offer. And if that’s the case, maybe they can get them on a, you know, quote unquote buy low for a little bit less than you’d think market price would be for a guy of Giannis’ talents. But that requires the Bucks to play ball as well. Um, but yeah, I I think like that’s the cost, man. It’s going to cost you a lot. It’s going to cost you all the picks. It’s going to cost you the swaps, everything. You might not think it’s worth it. There’s recent history to suggest that making these trades where you throw all your stuff in for a superstar doesn’t always work and can leave you feeling a whole lot of pain on the back end, you’d have to be prepared for that downside for sure. Um, but again, it’s Giannis. This isn’t 34y old Kevin Durant. This is Giannis at the peak of his powers. This is not 33-year-old Damen Lillard, a small guard. This is Giannis Attento, one of the best players we’ve seen this millennium, who’s still one of the three best players alive. It’s a bit of a different story. It’s tough though. I I get it. Like, it’s scary waiting into these waters. Like, it’s you’re you’re playing with the big fish, man. If you’re going to go hunt for big fish, you have to expect that you might get bitten by a shark and uh plummet to your death at the bottom of the sea for a slow, long decay. Um, with that visceral imagery, let’s continue on and uh talk about Pascal Seakum. We’ll leave the honest thing for now. We’ll talk about Pascal Seakum and maybe we’ll kind of bring it all the way back to Giannis by the time we’re done talking about Seakum. But he is the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. It’s awesome. Super happy for Pascal. I also think it’s extremely stupid how it’s being talked about through the frame of the Raptors. We’ll get into that to close things out coming up in just one second. Back at it here on your Monday edition of Lockdown Raptors talking now about Pascal Seakum, your Eastern Conference Finals MVP. Extremely cool. There’s like a pretty real Pascal Seakam Hall of Fame case building here. Threetime All-Star, two-time AllNBA, been to the finals now twice. Um, you know, most improved player back in 20189. Still a long way to go, but this Pacers team keeps on winning over the next little bit. There’s going to be a lot of recognition had for Seakum. I would like pencil him in already as an all-star for the next couple seasons in the Eastern Conference because look at the Eastern Conference. It’s pretty awesome, man. Really, really cool to see Sakam thrive in the way he is. And look, I rarely do this. I don’t often really respond to like national discourse because like who cares, right? Like yeah, people got to, you know, feed their families by having takes on the Raptors. Hell, I understand that completely. Um, but I also feel like national coverage it, you know, this is why the locked podcast network frankly exists is national coverage can be very broad, very general, miss the details, miss the context, things like that. And typically, you know, I don’t care because look, I understand that. It’s all part of the deal and I’m glad people can come here for a little bit more of a deep nuanced look at things than you’re going to get on the Hoop Collective podcast for example. But with the Hoop Collective being top of mind today with the Brian Winhorse stuff from the latest episode, I did want to talk a little about the other stuff that was said about the Raptors and Pascal Seakum and their sort of divorce on that episode of the Hoop Collect because I because I think this is a thing that not just is being said by Brian Windhor and Tim Bontemps who by the way like Tim Bontemps to me is like the best national guy covering the NBA. He’s most honest. He’s just people think he’s like cranky and stuff. No, he’s just like right and says it how it is a lot of the time, but sometimes I think they’re not maybe not even things that are 100% wrong, just mischaracterized. I don’t know. Let’s get into it. So, on this podcast where Brian Winhorse and Tim Bonmpson, Tim McMahon are talking about the NBA finals and Pascal Seakum and the Raptors going under the topic of, well, the Raptors are hunting for a big fish now, even though they had Pascal Seakum a big fish. First of all, like you’re talking about Giannis and Pascal Seakum. Like love Pascal Seakum with all my heart. Very different stories, very different size of fish you’re talking about with Pascal Seakum and Yiannis Kumbo. So there’s like kind of a false equivalency off the top. And then Tim Bontemps kind of got into this riff about how, you know, had the Raptors just found a way to keep Ojanobi who was awesome in game six of the conference finals and Pascal Seakum with Scotty Barnes and Fred Van Vleet, the team would have looked pretty good. And like that’s just certifiably not true because we saw it happen. That team was not good. They were fun in the 21-22 season for sure. They won 48 games. Got hot at the end. A weird precious Achua Heater was like strangely valuable and important to that run they went on. And then the following year they were a mess chemistry-wise on the court until they traded for Yakob Purle. And then Fred Van Vleet walked in the summer. You know, that was a misread of the market for sure and uh the Raptors certainly, I think, probably wish they did that one differently now, but like that team wasn’t good. And then the following year, the OG Seaka Barnes trio just did not work. And the Raptors did not have the stuff in the coffers to go and build a functional team around them. That was a thin team and this was a team that was kind of painted into a corner a by actions of their own. Certainly the Purle trade certainly was a move that boxed them in a little bit and made it even less likely that an OG Seak and Barnes trio was ever going to work. But I think it was getting pretty clear that those three guys while they had good metrics on the floor together, the fit wasn’t right. OG was like quite quite obviously telegraphing he wasn’t going to stay. The Raptors didn’t have a mechanism by which to extend him at a number he was going to take. And so they traded him before he hit for agency and likely walked away to the Knicks anyway. I think you had to do that with Seakum. You know, I’ve my my displeasure with how they handled the Seakum trade has been very very welltrodden road at this point on this podcast. Like think it sucks how they did it. I think if they wanted to trade him, they should have just traded him in the summer before. I think they hurt themselves value-wise. I think they’ve done a fine job kind of salvaging it, turning Seakum into Brandon Ingram, Jacobe Walter, and Oiabaji. about as good as you could have done considering the situation they painted themselves into. But ultimately I I just like there’s a world in which they make it work with Seakam and Bardens in particular. I was a big fan of that duo. I think their fit concerns were a little overblown, but they were there and it would have required like essentially perfect roster building around them to make it all work. And there’s a world where they do that and find the right moves, but not this one. They were still a team a couple years removed from the championship and still paying the tax, not the luxury tax, but just like the toll that comes from being a championship team, the first round picks you sent out the door, the player development that gets put on pause. This was a team that didn’t have a lot in the chest in the cupboard to go and continue to build around the Seakum Barnes pair when the purle thing sort of worked but didn’t and they lost Fred Van Vleet for nothing in for agency because they misread the market that left them with basically no other choice but then to trade Pascal Seakum and Ojanobi to restock the cupboards whether with more functional depth of the roster as they found with Bed and Quickly or through picks which they got for Pascal Seakum that they’ve then parlayed into more stuff that now the roster is like totally transformed from 18 months ago. I think it’s in a healthier place overall than it was 18 months ago when that team was not very good and was staring that down the barrel of being very expensive. And had you paid Pascal Seakum $50 million like he got from the Pacers, you’d be even more boxed in. And the thing that I find hilarious is that and there were Raptors fans certainly who were part of this as well. I don’t know how many are now, you know, turning face now that Seakum’s having success, but like most of the fan base was pretty done with the Seakkum experience, the whole he’s not a number one guy, you got to move on from him thing, which was stupid, but like that was a pretty clear consensus take among a lot of the fan base. And then like the national perspective on the Raptors around that time was what are they doing? They’ve got to pick a direction. They’ve got to trade their guys away. What have they done here? They picked a direction. And now because Seakum 18 months later is having this success, it sort of changes the a retconing of how that all went down. I think that’s kind of silly. Ultimately, the Raptors did not have a Tyresese Hallebertton in store to help lift Pascal Seakum up and amplify his strengths and cover for his weaknesses the way that the Pacers do. Flat out. Had the Raptors had a Tyresese Hallebertton, then Pascal Seakum is still in Toronto and everyone’s very happy. They they just again they kind of ran out of ways to finish building that team. Put it this way like they spent all their savings for a trip to Disney World. A life-changing never going to forget it trip to Disney World that was winning the NBA championship. They spent their life savings on that. And you’re not regretting that. You’re happy you did it. Those are memories that you can’t take back. But they had a great time when they got home. They realized, oh, we kind of need to rellandscape here. And then Scotty Barnes falls in their laps and it’s like, “Wow, we really need to like add an addition on out of this house and redo the backyard, but they didn’t have anything left to do that with. There was nothing left in the savings account to go and make those moves with.” And so the result is like it sucks that they got there, but the result was they had to make some moves to restock the cupboards, replenish the savings, restructure their finances a little bit to then be able to get to a position where they are now, where, by the way, they’re in a position potentially, if you listen to the right people, to go trade for one of the best players alive this summer. That’s the flexibility they’ve created by just having like a bunch of solid players on reasonably sized contracts. Maybe some are overpays, some are slight underpays, whatever. Like that’s the situation they’re in now. And I think the way the roster is set up now versus the way it was 18 years ago, when you factor in young players and picks and everything, like 18 months ago versus now, it’s obviously now it’s the better situation. And Pascal Seakum thriving and winning Eastern Conference Finals MVP doesn’t change that just because it’s the most recent thing to have happened. and had Tyresese Hallebertton got two extra votes and won the MVP. We’re probably not even having this conversation right now anyway, good things can happen to other teams and not have it to have it be like a thing that the other another team screwed the pooch on, I guess, is kind of what I’m coming down here on. And certainly the Raptors did not cover themselves in glory in those years before moving on from Pascal. 100% there were failures, there were miscues, misreads of the market, etc., etc. Held on to guys too long. All of that, as I kind of talked about, in a way, very justified for a team that won a championship and wanted to ride it out as long as they could with the guys who helped them win that championship as their new core. Didn’t work out. Whatever. You move on. You don’t need to keep on relitigating the past here. Like, I think it’s pretty boring. I think it’s been well litigated at this point. There were some mistakes the last 18 months or so. Things have gotten back on track. The roster, the team, the depth, everything is in a better position. And again, if they don’t make a trade this summer for Giannis, which they’re now in position to do because of all of this restructuring they’ve done, they can’t pull that off, then hey, they’re still going to go into next season with a very reasonable case to be a top six team in a not very good Eastern Conference, and they’ll still have that same flexibility to go do stuff when opportunities strike down the line. I just like why can’t it just be that Pascal Seakum is awesome and that part of the reason he’s been so awesome is that he’s playing on a team that perfectly accentuates the things he does well as opposed to it being well Pascal’s great that means the Raptors are fools even more so than they were when they made the trades that we all told them they had to make 18 months ago. It’s just silly to me. Anyway, Tim Bonmpson and Brian Winhurst are some of the best. We love the Hoop Collective, etc., etc. Um, but I just yeah, that one was kind of annoying and I just think like and I know we’ve done like recent episodes relitigating the past. It’s probably time to just stop relitigating the past except that Pascal Yakam is a place at a place where he’s having success that he would not have had here. Same for OG Anobi and the Raptors themselves. Yeah, it’s a bit of an unorthodox place they find themselves in, but the roster is in way better shape now than it was 18 months ago from a pure like upside perspective with young players and draft picks and guys who they have in house and are paying at a less than max rate. I think it’s all going to be all right, guys. It’s uh it’s really not worth relitigating the past 100 times to uh make yourself feel worse or feel better. I don’t know. Uh we’ll leave it there. We’ll talk about uh I don’t know, probably Giannis again tomorrow or something. Uh or we’ll keep on talking draft because uh yeah, draft’s now within reach. It’s very close. And uh we’ll we’ll keep the prospect profiles rolling. I’ve got a big board coming very soon here as well. And Jacob will be back on Wednesday. Maybe we’ll do some draft stuff with him. We’ll play some pick one maybe again. Either way, thank you so much for rocking with the show. Following, subscribing, rated, reviewing is much appreciated when you support us however it is you choose to do so. We will talk to you again on Tuesday with another episode of Locked On Raptor. Thanks for hanging. Bye-bye. Wow.

This weekend saw some more Giannis Antetokounmpo noise perk up regarding the Toronto Raptors, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst alluded to the Raptors being in the market for a big fish, and the Toronto Star’s Doug Smith reporting that there’s mutual interest between both sides — but does it change anything about how the Raptors might stack up in the Giannis sweepstakes? In Episode 1879, Sean Woodley goes solo to talk about the latest Giannis reporting, and ask the question: how much is too much for the Bucks’ superstar? Off the top, Sean digs into the loose reporting from Smith and Windhorst, resets the Giannis trade landscape and the factors lining in favour and against the Raptors being able to make it happen. Next, Sean gets into what the right price to pay for Giannis would be for the Raptors in order to both satisfy the Bucks’ wants and leave behind a team that can project to be a contender in the coming years while Giannis is still in his prime. Can RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes and all the picks get it done? And if more needs to be included, does it begin to make the team left over too thin to make the deal worth the risks? Lastly, Sean takes a moment to give Pascal Siakam his flowers for winning Eastern Conference Finals MVP before doing a thing he almost never does: get mad at national media discourse about Siakam.

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