Risk Not worth Reward, but Inactivity May Doom Raptors Again

In the wake of the disastrous end to the Toronto Raptors' season last April, general manager Masai Ujiri repeatedly bludgeoned himself (only verbally, don't worry) for not doing more to prevent it. He did not address the team's deficiencies at the February trade deadline, at which point the Raptors' weaknesses on both sides of the ball were already glaring. Even as time had passed, training camp had arrived and Ujiri had theoretically improved the team's flaws, he was still beating himself up for his inactivity. He should have seen his team's implosion coming.

Fast forward a year, and Ujiri took a look at his team, again near the top of the Eastern Conference standings, and… did absolutely nothing. Again. These Raptors are a much more balanced team than last year's unit—sixth in offence and ninth in defence, compared to the offence-only squad of a year ago—but once more, there were concerns to address. For starters, the Raptors could seriously use an upgrade at power forward, and some more flexibility up front in general. Unless Ujiri goes dumpster diving on the waiver wire, that is not going to happen this season.

"There is no deal that really came to us that (would facilitate the Raptors going for it aggressively this year)," Ujiri said to Toronto reporters after Thursday's NBA trade deadline passed. "And, secondly, it would be tough to mortgage our future."

The smart bet is that regardless of what happens with the Raptors this spring, Ujiri will finally move some of his young assets for immediate help either before the June draft or after free agency opens on July 1. We will get to that in a moment. In the interim, Ujiri was realistically hamstrung with what he could accomplish right now—and a lot of that is because of his own roster construction.

Due to the Raptors being over the salary cap, the value of the contracts they sent out in a trade would have to be roughly equal to the value of the contracts they acquired. Good players—you know, players worth giving up assets for—tend to have significant contracts.

Of course, the Raptors would never consider moving Kyle Lowry or DeMar DeRozan. As a result of his injury-plagued campaign, DeMarre Carroll, in the first season of a four-year contract worth about $60 million, was not very attractive on the trade market. Cory Joseph's four-year, $30-million deal looks to be team-friendly in its early days, but his ability to spell Lowry, and especially to play alongside him, has been key to the Raptors' success. (Plus, you cannot risk alienating Drake further by trading a Toronto-area kid who wears the number six.) Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross have signed contract extensions that do not kick in until next year, making it complicated to deal them.*

That essentially meant Ujiri had Patrick Patterson's contract (he is signed through next season at just over $6 million annually) and then deals ranging from the league minimum to Luis Scola's $2.9 million salary. With the Raptors' collection of first-round picks, it is likely that they could have acquired a slight upgrade on Patterson or Scola, but it would have been the type of move that raised the Raptors' floor, not their ceiling. It is hard to construct a universe in which the Raptors beat the Cavaliers if LeBron James is healthy, whether it was Patterson, Scola, Thad Young or Ryan Anderson starting at power forward.

*Colloquially known as the "poison pill provision," players who are still playing on their old contracts but have signed multi-year contract extensions are difficult to move. The team acquiring such a player would take a cap hit equivalent to the average of the player's current salary and all of the years of his extension (so, in Valanciunas's case, just shy of $14 million). The team surrendering such a player, assuming it is over the cap, only has the slot of the current season's salary to fill (for Valanciunas, $4.66 million). Therefore, it is almost impossible for a team to surrender such a player and actually improve in the short term, unless that player is not very good, thus limiting his desirability in the first place.)

It is understandable if some fans would campaign for Ujiri to overpay to improve the Raptors' worst-case scenario. Despite having home-court advantage, the team has been eliminated in the first round in consecutive seasons, and a third straight flame out would throw everything into peril: coach Dwane Casey's status, DeRozan's desire to remain in Toronto, and Ujiri's attachment to anybody and everybody on the roster. For an example of how things can go wrong in a short time, just look at Portland's journey since last year's trade deadline, when the Trail Blazers looked ascendant. (Of course, they acquired Arron Afflalo last season, but that did not protect them against the tyranny of injuries and eventual consequences.) If DeMarre Carroll does not come back from his knee injury fully healthy and productive, it is possible that Ujiri's inactivity dooms the Raptors, as it did a year ago. Additionally, Lowry and DeRozan might never be better than they are at this moment, and not capitalizing on their potential peaks is risky.

As soon as Atlanta removed Al Horford from the trade market, however, it became difficult to see a move that significantly mitigated that risk—at least enough to consider moving the pick coming from the Knicks via Denver that is almost certain to be in the lottery.

Give it a few months, and that math will change. These playoffs are going to be revealing for the Raptors, regardless of what happens. If they lose again in the first round, the above paragraph will alter their options. With some more success, the Raptors might find themselves in one-piece-away territory. By adding Ross and Valanciunas to his collection of realistic trade chips, Ujiri will have far more options to swing a major deal, assuming he cannot find that piece in free agency.

"I feel we can use (our assets) better then," Ujiri said.

The general manager has already said it is highly unlikely he uses all four of those first-round picks, which makes sense given that a third of the roster is already reserved for long-term projects. If the Raptors win a playoff series or two, Ujiri will have plenty of motivation to be more aggressive than he has been in his first three years on the job. If they lose, he will probably be forced into aggressiveness, too.

For now, he concluded the risk was not worth the potential reward. And he was probably right.