REPORT: The Raptors Are Ready To Make A HUGE Trade

REPORT: The Raptors Are Ready To Make A HUGE Trade

We’ve said it many times, the Toronto Raptors are looking to get back into the playoffs for next season. But what if the playoffs alone aren’t enough for the front office? And what if they’re really hunting a huge trade in the off season? Well, reports are suggesting just that. Let’s get into it. Welcome back to the channel. This is Amateur R Sports, the YouTube channel that’s completely dedicated to providing you Toronto Raptors content in videos like this and live streams on the channel. And we’ve had a ton of reports coming out in the last few days giving us further evidence that the Raptors are big fish hunting in the offseason. Now, speculated about it a little bit on the channel already because we are heading into an offseason here where yes, the Raptors have the ambition of getting back into the playoffs. That was made pretty clear at the 2025 NBA trade deadline when they went out and acquired Brandon Ingram. It was kind of a team that was seemingly in a tank mode. It was what was described by Messiahuri himself as the first year of the rebuild. But Messiahi historically has not been one to sit and relax on a rebuild. Always trying to push this team to a winning position. Sometimes for the better, you know, and going out and getting Kawhi Leonard, vaulting him up to the NBA championship in 2019, but sometimes as well for the worse when maybe it wasn’t a team worth investing in. And though Yaka Pearl is a fantastic player, trading for him at a trade deadline in a season where you were already on the outside of the playoff picture looking in and didn’t even get to the playoffs, losing the first round of playing tournament, that can hinder the team. But he has always been ambitious. He has always been aggressive. And now the Raptors are in a position where there is a pretty solid foundation of talent within the team that just needs to have that player that pushes them over the edge. And the Raptors in their current state have the ninth overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft at the end of the month, but also the Raptors have control of all of their first round draft capital going forward, which gives them the opportunity to pull all of those picks together alongside some tradable contracts for superstars in order to make something big happen. And the big reports are coming out now about Giannis on Tendubo. Again, we speculated about it on the channel. We’ve talked about Giannis’s position with the Milwaukee Bucks where Giannis kind of maybe looking at the Bucks right now and thinking this is not going to be a team the caliber that gets me to a championship and he alongside every other you know fringe playoff team lower side of playoff teams in the Eastern Conference like any team in the East right now will be smelling blood the state of the Eastern Conference question marks about the Cavaliers because of their somewhat early exit from the playoffs. The Boston Celtics likely without Jason Tatum for at least most of if not the entire season next year. Indiana Paige despite going to the NBA finals perhaps winning an NBA championship nobody really perceives them as the top dog team to beat in the East and the same can be said about the New York Knicks. There’s no real humongous threat. The East seems pretty wide open for teams like the Turner Raps if they can make a bid trade and Giannis recognizes that as well because reports are suggesting from very good sources like Brian Windhorse that the Raptors are looking to land Giannis. Here’s what he had to say in a recent podcast on the Hoop Collective. The Raptors are a team that is starting to make noise within the league about looking for a big fish. If you’re an Eastern Conference team that’s in the middle of the pack, you’re looking at the teams in front of you going, some of them may not be able to come together, may be able to stay together. Boston is hurt. And so, there are some teams that sniff the ability to make a move. And I think Toronto is one of those teams. Any team that wants to make a move this summer, especially a team in the Eastern Conference, you’re going to have Giannis on the board. From their initial conversations, teams in the league are getting the impression that Toronto is going to try to do something. So news like this should come as no surprise, but it starts to build up the intrigue for something big happening with the Raptors in the offseason because, you know, I’ve said a couple times now, we’ve speculated about and we said they’re in position to go and do this, but now we’re actually getting the noise that yeah, Toronto is hunting to do something here. you know, they don’t have the seventh overall pick, eighth overall pick, or even the first overall pick, but they do have the ninth overall pick, which is still a pretty big draw in a pretty talented draft class. And if a trade is going to go down, it pretty much is going to have to include that ninth overall pick to make it worth it for a team making this trade. And this situation has changed a lot for the Milwaukee Bucks because like like two months ago, I would have said like, look, you know, we’ve been down this path before with Giannis. We we’ve done this whole thing where hey there now is a really good opportunity for Giannis to move on. The Raptors are poised. They’re in a great position to make an offer here and nothing materialized. And I didn’t really want to start down this whole pathway again a couple of months ago. But things really changed with that Damen Lillard injury. And it’s unfortunate to see a player go down like that. But like that’s just the reality. This is just the current situation. Damen Lillard is likely going to be out for most of if not the entire season next year. And without Damen Lillard, like the Bucks were already kind of on the fringes of being a competitive team for winning a championship. Without Damen Lillard, they have no chance of getting there. And Giannis, you know, he’s not getting any younger here at 30 years old. He’s starting to recognize that as well. And the fit does exist. I don’t want to overrate the relationship between Messiah Juri and Jonathan Coop of the past, as other people have done previously, even maybe myself on the channel once upon a time. I’m not going to overrate that, but the relationship does exist and it’s certainly a market in Toronto that Giannis can absolutely thrive in from a basketball standpoint and I think from a personal standpoint as well, building up his personal brand. It could only stand to improve going to, you know, it’s not a big NBA market, but it is a humongous market worldwide Toronto. And I think that’s something that could really be beneficial for somebody like Giannis to take on. And some reports are coming out suggesting that there is mutual interest. Like obviously the Raps are going to be interested. Some reports are saying there’s mutual interest with Giannis as well. Giannis wanted to come here. That’s coming from Doug Smith Toronto Star. I don’t really take that as super duper credible, but okay. Some noise at least being put out that there is a mutual want for a trade like this to materialize. But what does this trade actually need to look like? I’ve talked about it already on this channel here, but let’s kind of rehash what this situation really will be. So, the Raptors have big enough contracts where that this isn’t really a complicated maneuver for the Raptors to take on. The easy one here is Scotty Barnes. And using Scotty Barnes in this trade makes it relatively easy to get done because that is the blue chip piece going the other way that I think Milwaukee would be content to start building around, start over with. like that’s somebody that you can really convince them to be the centerpiece going forward. So, you know, I feel like if Scotty Barnes is on the table, this is a trade that is going to get done. What else would have to be included? Well, fit fitwise, there’s still conversations about, you know, the issue RJ Barrett in that fit. As much as we’ve talked about it, I don’t want to keep having to give this asterisk and preface this. RJ Barrett’s a great player. You do wonder if that style caters towards winning. Maybe that’s a player the Bucks would still be interested in taking on regardless financially player that kind of has to be included in the deal. You could involve Emanuel quickly, but then you’re without a point guard and then you have like Barrett, Giannis, Brandon Ingram, the fits a bit clunky. That team needs a point guard. So, I’d be inclined to keep Emanuel quickly, but I would also be very inclined to keep Scotty Barnes. As much as Barnes Giannis and Brandon Ingram isn’t a phenomenal fit, I think there’s just so much talent there that you are going to be able to make it work in some capacity and the Giannis fit next to Brandon Ingram reminds me a lot of Giannis next to Chris Middleton, which is obviously extremely successful as a duo for the Milwaukee Bucks. So, that really does intrigue me. If the Raptors were hellbent on keeping Scotty Barnes, now the trade might have to become something that involves Emanuel Quickley alongside RJ Barrett. And again, these are trades that have like the entire catalog of picks involved in it. It’s going to cost potentially four first round picks and two swaps. Like, and that includes the ninth overall pick. Maybe with Scotty Barnes, do we trim it down to three first round picks and two swaps? perhaps, but four picks may still be the price to actually get this trade done. So, it’s a complicated one when trading for a superstar like this because in the case of Giannis, you do need to trade enough to get him, but you also need to have a good enough team remaining in place for Giannis to actually compete for a championship here. So, will Giannis want to come to Toronto if it’s Scotty Barnes involved? I still think there is a contender here if Scotty Barnes goes the other way. Emanuel Quickley, some form of a shooting guard that hopefully can be acquired, whether it be in the draft, whether it be in free agency or whether it be somebody on the roster like a Grady Dick or Jacobe Walls are really stepping up. Mayo Quickley the shooting guard, Giannis, Brand Ingramman, Purle. That to me is very very close to championship caliber, especially within the Eastern Conference. Now, getting over the line against the Western Conference team might be difficult. We’re getting a little bit too far ahead of ourselves. That is absolutely a contender in the current state of the Eastern Conference. You’d still want it to look a little bit better. Is it a little bit better with Scotty Barnes involved? Is there a way of moving pieces where you still keep Emanuel Quickley and Scotty Barnes, but land Giannis with RJ Bert as a centerpiece of a trade? That makes it a lot more difficult. I struggle to come up with a trade that has enough to get Giannis that doesn’t include RJ Barrett and either Emanuel Quickley or Scotty Barnes. So that’s going to be the complication in making this trade. Personally, I’m comfortable with anybody being involved. Not like everybody, but if you know two of any of the pieces are involved, I’m comfortable with being anybody other than Brandon Ingram because you that’s the guy he went out and got. That’s the guy you got to keep. And I think that is a such a good fit next to Yannis and Tentacmpo. And the second player is Jakoba Purle. Not because he’s untouchable in terms of his abilities, but positionally you are going to absolutely 100% need that style of player to be in the lineup. the rim protector, the big next to Giannis that allows Giannis to play the help defense for a and do so much more on defense. Kind of like what Brook Lopez was doing defensively except even better than that by having Yaka Purle in the team. So Brandon, Yaka Purle for me, you don’t want to have involved in this trade whatsoever. But the rest some sort of combination is there that exists and there’s probably not a lot of combinations of that that I would really say no to. like realistic like you choose two of the players in the picks, there’s probably not a lot of combinations there that I say no to. I think Giannis does vault this team into the next level and into a phase where this team can seriously win a championship next season. Still a long way away from happening, but look, rumors and reports are starting to come out. It would have made sense before these rumors and reports started to come out. Messiah Jiruri is in the last year of his contract. Is he trying to make a splash before maybe those conversations start to happen? If his time is up, does he want to take one last shot at it with the Raptors? There are a lot of things pointing towards something big like this happening. And it could be Giannis. That’s the name that’s being come out that it’s that’s being put out there. But it could be other names. They could go fishing for somebody like Kevin Durant. Could go fishing for somebody like Trey Young. even like does LaMelo Ball become somewhat available in the off season? There are a lot of players out there with potential to be that big fish for the Raptors. None bigger to me than Giannis, who is 30 and is still playing prime basketball, MVP level basketball. There are a lot of options out there and it’s starting to feel like something big could be coming for this Raptors

REPORT: The Toronto Raptors are ready to make a huge splash in the trade market and are showing interest in acquiring Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Milwaukee Bucks.

Jacob Gramegna investigates the reports to help determine if this trade can happen and what it would have to look like. Are RJ Barrett AND Scottie Barnes on the table?

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0:00 – The Raptors are big fish hunting in the offseason
2:07 – Reports linking Giannis to the Raptors are starting to emerge
4:30 – The situation has changed dramatically for the Bucks
5:22 – Giannis’ fit with the Raptors and Toronto
6:28 – What does the trade need to look like?
8:43 – The big complication of a superstar trade
10:11 – How far should the Raptors go to make it happen?
11:28 – A huge splash in the final year of Masai Ujiri’s contract?

This is Amateur Hour Sports. On this channel, Jacob Gramegna analyzes and breaks down the latest on the Toronto Raptors NBA team from trade rumors to post-game reactions, analysis, and much more. By subscribing to this channel you will be there first to watch and enjoy 3-4 videos a week all focused on this team and on game days Jacob goes live on the channel for a watch party where he interacts with chat, answers your questions, and analyses the game as it happens with play by play and commentary. Join the Amateur Hour Army today by subscribing and consider becoming a member to give extra support to the channel and help create better content more often.

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