https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/raptors-notebook-where-toronto-stands-after-off-season-moves/
Gary Trent Jr. agreeing to a one-year, minimum contract with the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday did not signal the end of the NBA off-season. It did, however, signal the most official acceptance yet of the 2024 reality: A confluence of factors from the new collective bargaining agreement have had an outsized impact on the 2024 free agent group’s middle class.
To make things simpler than they are, let’s call it three primary factors acting on the market for players like Trent right now.
The first is the introduction of a second luxury tax apron, beyond which the highest-spending teams face even larger tax penalties and, more importantly, serious limitations to how they’re allowed to build their roster. Teams at the highest echelons of spending don’t have as many exceptions and accounting tricks as in prior years to keep adding to a contending core; teams in the moderately-high spending tiers don’t want to risk reaching that second apron and being similarly restricted.
The second is a dearth of cap space, generally, for teams to chase free agents. More and more over the last decade, teams have decided to operate above the salary cap, eschewing real cap space to keep Bird rights on their own players and open up the mid-level exception. The Raptors are a great example — only once in Masai Ujiri’s tenure have they actually operated as a cap-space team (signing DeMarre Carroll), instead deciding it’s more valuable to, say, take on salary from the Kings in a trade to pick up assets and pick up the team option on Bruce Brown, rather than see what’s out there on the market. There just isn’t nearly as much real cap space out there as the size of contracts suggests, and most of it is hoarded by teams who aren’t exactly competitive.
A third factor is that teams can now save their mid-level exception to use as a trade exception in-season. There is an opportunity cost to using the mid-level now that wasn’t there before.
Those factors may not be permanent. Teams will learn how to better build around the looming threat of punitive tax charges and roster-building restrictions, or they’ll eventually get desperate enough to accept them. Players could prioritize money-in-hand via veteran extensions, which have had maximum allowable raises increased, over what looks like riskier free agency for non-star players, a trend that materialized early this free agent season. Teams may realize that using the mid-level as a trade chip isn’t worth missing out on a player in the offseason, given how many other ways there are to create trade exceptions (like turning Josh Okogie into a walking one, for example).
For this summer, though, Trent and players like him were left to navigate one of the most uncertain off-seasons in memory. The Toronto Raptors were no longer interested in retaining Trent, and with so few teams operating with cap space or even the full mid-level exception ($12.8 million in Year 1), Trent was left to make a difficult choice. In the end, he opted to reunite with Damian Lillard and contend for a championship on a one-year minimum ($2.6 million) rather than taking multi-year offers at the smaller mid-level ($5.2 million in Year 1) that were on the table, according to league sources.
What follows is a notebook on other contract and market details as it pertains to the Raptors off-season.
Scottie Barnes
When the Raptors signed Pascal Siakam to a maximum rookie-scale extension before the 2019-20 season, his actual “maximum” could have been a few different maximums, depending on which criteria he met that season. When he made All-NBA Second Team, he jumped from making 25 per cent of the 2020-21 salary cap to 28 per cent. Had he made All-NBA First Team, that would have been 29 per cent. Had he won MVP, it would have been 30 per cent. It meant that each successive Siakam achievement in 2019-20 would impact his salary for the next four years.
The maximum rookie-scale extension for Barnes is much simpler.
His 2025-26 salary will be 25 per cent of the 2025-26 salary cap but will jump to 30 per cent if he makes any All-NBA team or wins MVP or Defensive Player of the Year this season. There are no successive levels of achievement and different percentages; it’s 25 per cent or 30, a projected difference of about $50 million based on current cap estimates. It also doesn’t matter if he achieves those accolades in future years; his 2024-25 performance solely dictates what the five-year extension looks like.
Barnes’ contract also contains a 15 per cent trade kicker. If he is dealt at any point during the contract, he’ll receive a 15 per cent bonus — payable by the Raptors, not his new team — though that can’t push him past the maximum salary. (Functionally, this just means hey, if you trade me and the cap has gone up a lot, I get topped up to the new max.)
Immanuel Quickley contract details
There are a few small details about Quickley’s massive new deal that lessen the sticker shock slightly, though not enough to change your thinking on the big-picture decisions. The first is that the deal is flat, meaning he earns the same every season, so with the cap projected to rise 10 per cent annually for the foreseeable future, the share of the cap Quickley takes up will decrease each year. In addition, while reported as a five-year, $175-million contract, Quickley’s deal is actually for $162.5 million, with the ability to earn another $12.5 million in “unlikely incentives.”
In CBA terms, “unlikely” just means that the player didn’t achieve those incentives the year prior. However, sources indicated to Sportsnet that the incentives are, actually, unlikely. And so it’s better to proceed with Quickley’s contract as a flat $32.5 million on the books each year.
Other assorted notes
* As things currently stand, the Raptors are about $4.7 million below the luxury tax line, assuming unlikely incentives are not achieved. If Vezenkov is bought out, that number could grow. When looking at possible late additions to the roster, that’s the number to look at, even though the Raptors technically have their full mid-level (starting at $12.8 million) available to them. They won’t pay the tax in a non-contending year, not when the tax payouts league-wide are well into the eight-figures if you’re a non-tax team.
* The Raptors have 16 players under (non-two-way) contract, and Javon Freeman-Liberty is the only one of those without a full guarantee. He has $100,000 guaranteed, which will increase to $150,000 next week and $800,000 if he makes the opening night roster. His future could depend as much on the Vezenkov situation and the play of the team’s other young guards this summer. He’s a well-liked piece, but as currently constructed, there would have to be one cut made, and it’s usually the guy without the guarantee (especially if the team just drafted two backcourt players and you’re a combo-guard). He’d have immediate two-way interest around the NBA if let go.
* Canadian Quincy Guerrier is reported to have signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Raptors, which would bring him into camp and give him a bonus to supplement the G League salary if he’s cut and joins Raptors 905. Among the unsigned players on Toronto’s Summer League roster, Jamison Battle seems like a good bet to be offered an Exhibit 10, as well. A lot changes quickly once Summer League ends, with guys changing programs or being signed elsewhere and so on, but Battle’s stood out for his shooting ability at good size, and would be a worthwhile 905 piece.
* On that same note, the Raptors allowed Drew Timme to bow out of their Summer League roster to continue playing with the Kings after participating in the California Classic with them. He was replaced by Canadian Fardaws Aimaq, who they subsequently released so he could pursue a more sizeable opportunity with the Nuggets’ Summer League team. These things happen every year, during and after Vegas. It’s good business to be easy to do business with.
*INGRAM*ALLSTARSEASON*
