2020 Record: 51 � 31

 

Season Highlight:

The season highlight for the Raptors must have been the awards dinner. The team performed well all season and a few of their team came away with prizes. Jrue Holiday picked up 6th man of the year and also was featured in the All-Defensive Second Team. He wasn't the only Raptor to walk away with hardware from the season, Damian Lillard picked up an All League Second team award.

 

Season Lowlight:

Being the second team to fall to the surging Wizards in a tough 7 game series. For times in the series it looked like they would come out of the series with a win. Take game 6 where they blew the Wizards out with a 118-85 game, behind a good scoring game by Dame, and a huge rebounding victory 62-46 lead by double digit rebounds from Vuc, Wood, and Thomas Bryant.

But then the 4th quarter of game 7 came around, leading 95-87 coming into the period they just couldn't hold the lead. Vuc and Dame gave it everything they had but Christian Wood disappeared and it looked like the fix was in with the Wizards with double the amount of free throw attempts in the game. And with that the season was over.

 

Best Trade:

Its a hard category to pick here because a lot of the trades that were made during the season were quite fair.

I'm going to go with C.J. McCollum for Jrue Holiday and a SAC 2023 1st.

While I can see the reason behind it for both sides, the ability for Jrue to play both sides of the ball really helped the team take the steps to do s well as they did this season. The pick is nice too, but its a long way off to really judge its value. An interesting factoid that is in the trade comments is that Jrue was picked 47 overall and CJ 53, so in that light adding a pick to the higher picked player looks sweet.

 

Worst Trade:

Thomas Bryant for Aron Baynes and 3 firsts.

I like Thomas Bryant, I think he will be a really solid player for years to come. The trade post comments were fairly critical of the deal with the banter suggesting  this package is one that should net an all-star and that Bryant isn't that level of player, where jessedunne sees that allstar potential in Bryant.

 

Other Notable Trades:

The New York Knicks send Malcolm Brogdon, Daniel Gafford, a 1st-Rounder (Por) and Vincent Poirier to the Toronto Raptors. The Toronto Raptors send Nikola Vucevic, 2nd-Rounder (Tor) and Norvel Pelle to the New York Knicks.

Sending out a dominant big man to clear the starters space for the previously mentioned Bryant for a really solid point guard, a pick and whatever Daniel Gafford becomes. It looks like a move for position of need so it does well for the team.

 

The Toronto Raptors send Joe Ingles to the Sacramento Kings.

The Sacramento Kings send a 2nd-Rounder (Chi) and 1st-Rounder (Por) to the Toronto Raptors.

This one is pretty nifty as Jingles gets resold recently for Patrick McCaw and Miye Oni. So to squeeze a first for Joe where others struggle to get a single NBA player in return looks pretty positive.

 

The Cleveland Cavaliers send Paul George and Kevin Huerter to the Toronto Raptors. The Toronto Raptors send Damian Lillard and Semi Ojeleye to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Moving on from Lillard for George and Huerter looks like fun.

Now combining two Draymond Green trades into one split over 5 months:

 

The Toronto Raptors send Ricky Rubio, Domantas Sabonis, a 2nd-Rounder (Min), a 2nd-Rounder (Tor) and a 1st-Rounder (Tor).

For Evan Fournier, a 1st-Rounder (Dal) and 1st-Rounder (Phi).

When the deal is combined like this, its hard to like, but we are ignoring injury and performance over the season for Draymond.

 

Free Agency:

The only name on the Toronto Raptors free agent board is Christian Wood. They must retain him so they can trade him. If for some reason he doesn't come back for the sign and trade, then its a big opportunity lost. It will be interesting to see what return there is for the big man.

 

Star:

Damiam Lillard. 30 points a game and 97% free throw rate is pretty tasty. Pair that with the 42% 3pt rate and its gravy. The is one rule in NSL and that is superstars win games. Dame was that star and lead his team to a very successful season. This season he has a purple range extender badge, 33 gold badges, and 95 overall, where his replacement has 15 gold badges, a bunch of silver, and 88 overall. Will moving him on for a lesser star harm this team? Yes.

 

Goat:

Thomas Bryant will hold the default goat because of the price paid for him. Falling just short of averaging a double double in 31 mintues per game is not the performace you want.

To defend Bryant though, he shot 48% from 3 and 53% overall, so its a nice base to start from.

 

Draft Grades:

Danial Oturu was chosen with the 30th pick. Too early to judge at the moment, from his 3 preseason games he only missed one shot but he is looking like the 4th or 5th string for the Clippers, who selected Mifiondu Kabengele last season, so Oturu's path to minutes looks challenging.

 

The Future:

The team has 5 top 100 ESPN players, and Paul George is 9th best NSL player. They'll have whatever Christian Wood becomes and they still have 5 first rounders over the next 5 years, so there is a little bit of flexibilty to make moves to keep improving the team. I can't see them repeating last years success though as I think the movement of Dame might hurt the team overall.