This Looks Bad…

This Looks Bad…

This looks bad as there’s a portion of the Raptors fan base right now that’s fired up over some comments made by Rich Paul regarding his client Brandon Ingram and specifically comments are being misinterpreted as him saying the Raptors overpaid for Brandon Ingram. But nonetheless, it has people fired up and for decent reasons. So, we’ll discuss that including the Raptors collapse out there in summer league over the weekend and some interesting developments that happened for this Raptors team and their loss to the Kings and just overall major takeaways from this summer league team. So, lots of stuff to break down out here in this video. But before we dive into that, folks, I appreciate every single one of you that have been hitting the subscribe button. As of late, we’re very, very close to that 39,000 subscriber goal we’ve had for the last couple weeks. So, make sure you guys hit that sub button if you don’t want to miss a single thing with this Raptors team, especially as things get quieter offseason. A lot of things get overlooked, but uh you won’t miss it here on Raptors Digest. But hit that subscribe button down below. It’s free. Let’s dive into the news because there is some very interesting developments to discuss right now specifically regarding Brandon Ingram and uh you know his agent Rich Paul as the Raptors are a little bit in a weird situation. It’s been the whole topic of discussion this entire offseason, the Cap situation, the second apron. Are the Raptors overpaying for their squad that didn’t even make the playoffs last year? Well, to add fuel to the fire, Rich Paul just came out with some comments saying that I don’t want to continue. Oh, I I’m pressing the wrong buttons here. But basically, I don’t want to continue to dampen free agency. I went through it this year with Brandon Ingram, having him trade it from New Orleans and then doing his deal uh during the season with the Raptors. Basically saying, I did that because if he had got to the open market, there was not much opportunity there. And he’s now making $40 million per year over the next three years. and that probably wouldn’t have been there for him if we got to quote unquote free agency. Now, this comment has a lot of Raptors fans, specifically the people that haven’t really been in the Bobby Webster in the Bayou Jury camp over the past, you know, few seasons, you know, post uh post the bubble post, the Tampa Tank season. There is a huge contingent of fans that have not been happy with the moves the Toronto Raptors have made. And these comments from Rich Paul really add fuel to the fire. Now, I’m going to first say I’m still happy the Raptors did what they did, trade it for Brandon Ingram and extended him. I am not coming out and saying this is a bad move by any circumstances given the current context because you bring in a very, very talented player at Brandon Ingram at 27 years old averaging 22 points per game, 5.6 rebounds, five assists. You a guy that gets buckets, he’s a strong shooter. He is a guy that’s a very phenomenal basketball player. I do not mind about the contract. I do not mind the deal that the Raptors end up having to sign to bring in Brandon Ingram. You know, with the 20 uh the three years basically $38 million this season, $40 million next season, and $42 million at 2728. I don’t think this is a bad move whatsoever. But the optics of this, it just looks bad because the Toronto Raptors right now are in a spot where they are paying a lot of money for a lot of players that have been on this team for a decent amount of time and frankly are not uh, you know, didn’t lead this team to a lot of winning last year. Now, this was a partly done strategically. The Raptors had a lot of injuries. They had a lot of guys sit out the back half of the year. the squad was trying to rebuild, develop, and find some young guys to fill out the rotation, move forward into the future. So, don’t get me wrong on that front. I still think this group is a lot more talented, but nonetheless, this team is very, very expensive. And I think there’s a lot of people, even a lot of people, understand the logic behind trading for Brandon Ingram and making this move at the deadline because we didn’t give up that much. Kelly Olen, Bruce Brown, and then a first. Cool. That first would have been all right with Tyresese Hallebert and tearing his Achilles and it would have been more valuable. You wouldn’t have known that at the time. The Pacers, one of the better teams in the league. That is what it is. I still think that’s a strong trade to give out for Brandon Ingram. I think it’s a a great trade for the Toronto Raptors. But then the extension comes in at $40 million annually. And now you have his agent coming out and directly stating that that money was not there for him in free agency. It just wasn’t there. you weren’t going to be able to, you know, give him that type of deal, give that type of bread if you were one of those other teams out there in NBA free agency. So, basically, it all comes down to the the comments, the the period of who are the Toronto Raptors negotiating with. And we’ve heard this argument pop up a ton in regards to basically all a lot of the extensions that have came around out here now at this point. You know, I’ve heard it most recently regarding Yaka Purle. I think there would have been a massive market for Yakapurle if he were to hit free agency or if he were to hit that open market. So, I don’t think it falls in the camp of a Yakapurle extension, but really, it was big time brought up in regards to Manuel Quickley conversations because, you know, $32 million per year for a guy that, you know, hasn’t really proven he could consistently be that top level point guard, you know, upper echelon PG at the, you know, he’s shown flashes of it, but injuries have really hampered his ability to stamp his mark on the NBA about, hey, I really deserve this bread. I deserve this type of contract and stuff, but he’s the big one that’s been brought up. And you know, the Albatross contract that people are discussing. And you know, you’ve seen some people around the league say, “Scotty Barnes doesn’t deserve $50 million per year. What has he done?” Now, he’s been an all-star. He’s shown tremendous growth defensively. Of course, he needs approved. But there’s a lot of these arguments getting thrown out. It’s like, who the heck were you competing with to give up all that money? And now Rich Paul agents essentially says, “Hey, there wasn’t much competition to make 30 $40 million a year.” And I’m not saying we shouldn’t have extended Brandon Ingram, but could you have got him at more of a, you know, lower 30s annually? Could the Toronto Raptors have been out here and, you know, signed Brandon Ingram, brought him into the mix, kept him into his contract situation at that at a lesser number than the $40 million per year. That’s the the real conversation. You look at uh, you know, guys that we all thought would be overpaid. Cam Thomas, Yo, Jonathan Kaminga, Josh Giddy, all these dudes that people worried about the contracts. there’s no real competition to give them that type of deal out there this off season. So, would there have been for Brandon Ingram? Who really knows? The Atlanta Hawks were very interested in him at the trade deadline as well. So, I think if he didn’t sign an extension, uh they wouldn’t have made the Chris Porzingis deal. They would have adjusted their cap uh situation to probably run a lot of money at the Raptors. But, it’s something that doesn’t look very good when an agent essentially say there wasn’t really much competition to give a ton of money. And in the modern NBA with the second apert issues with all these rules, it’s uh it does look like a little bit of an overpay. So, not the worst thing in the world. I don’t think it’s, you know, if we’re looking at bad money on the Toronto Raptors, I don’t think Brandon Ingress by any means the worst unless he’s dealing with a ton of injuries over the next few seasons. But basically, it’s a move I still would have done, but it would have been nice to negotiate down a cheaper number. So, let me know what you guys think about that. But, let’s dive also into SummerLake because the Toronto Raptors ended up getting smoked in the final game of Summer League. Yeah. 98 to 88. Now, they were down big time throughout most of the game. game. They end up making a nice little comeback there at the end. But basically, Isaac Jones ended up dominating the squad that, you know, even though we do have two quote unquote NBA caliber set, I think Shamsh showed a lot during summer league. This is by far his worst game out there in summer league. You know, in 60 bits of action, six fouls and three turnovers, no points. did have seven boards, but you know, the Raptors had a hole at the center position with Sha Shay being out there in foul trouble and uh CMBB also just not having his best performance after coming off, you know, really standout game for the Raptors in the second last game against the Golden State Warriors. So, you know, the front court was depleted. Uh Colin Castleton has really played his way out of any opportunities getting a full-time roster spot of my opinion. He did not look good and he’s going to be followed out of the depth chart for sure, you know, after his summer league performances. But the Raptors got cooked out there at the big man position. That’s why they lost. But I’m not going to come out and say, “Oh, summer league was a catastrophe because, you know, they had one bad game against the Kings, specifically at the big man position. You know, the negative takeaways to certainly take away from this one is Shamshay still needs some development. The reason he was on a twoyear two-way contract, uh, CMBB not going to be perfect by any means. You know, Night Out. Castleton’s kind of on his way out. And then, you know, Jameson Battle, he’s been hustling on defense. got burned a few times uh out there on the wing, but still knocked down his shots, but I’m not worried about Jameson Bal being uh, you know, a top defender of the league. There were some positives and Mobo, I think, also, you know, the foul trouble and stuff. You’d like to see him have a stronger performance, especially with the other bigs out there at the MS and Isaac Jones being a similar sized player, you’d like to see Mo just have a stronger summer league, but he’s been dealing with some injuries. the one the couple things that are huge positives and the the thing I really want to just discuss the final game and the whole summer is a monster man that dude you know I get the three-point shot still not phenomenal I get that you know last season we were hoping just stats last year she had 32% uh for the three-point line now he did make 39% from his corner threes but uh you know as a sixoot guard you want to see him knock down more three-point shots these were stats over the course of last regular season but this dude did everything he could to get the Toronto Raptors to win. 24 points, 12 assists, four boards, intense defense. He did have five turnovers, but that is what it is. But 96 seed shoot just was the engine of this Raptors group and he is proving that even with the, you know, up and down jump shot, this dude has the poise, he has the confidence, he has literally it all in terms of, uh, you know, being that next type of guard that has that, you know, star mentality. Will he become that? I don’t know. But he has that it factor. Of course, the jump shot needs to come along for him to take a Kyle Lowry escalape, to take even a Fred Van Vleet escalape. He needs to become a better jump shooter. But this dude’s mentality, his energy, his poise, his leadership cannot be understated. We talked about Manuel Clickley being overpaid a little bit. You know, his contract’s a little bit high. Jamal Shed could be waiting in the wings to be that starting guard for the Toronto Raptors moving forward in the future if he just gets that three-point jump shot, you know, knocking down at a high level. So really impressed with what I saw from Jamal Shed, even though the Raptors did have an ugly game against the Kings. Let me know what you guys think about the Toronto Raptor summer league. Might make a full breakdown and stuff in ter terms of things that are going on, but you guys are the best. Hit that subscribe button if you guys haven’t already. I’m signing out. Just

The Toronto Raptors are in a bit of a financial crunch right now and recent comments by NBA agent Rich Paul has some Raptors fans concerned about the future of the team. Ben Rogers breaks down the comments as well as the Raptors collapse vs the Kings in Summer League.

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