Would you extend Pascal Siakam on a max deal?

[Purple+Black]

Seeing what we have seen from this team since the trade, if you were Masai and Bobby would you want to extend Pascal at the max?

Their philosophy has always been to retool and evaluate with each trade as opposed to throwing in the towel and going full rebuild. Pascal's fit around BBQ makes a lot of sense - age is the only question mark but he's added enough finesse to his game over the past few years that I feel his game will age similar to DeRozan's. All-star calibre players with excellent work ethics who made a name for themselves using their athleticism and then transitioned to a well-rounded players who can also facilitate. That game tends to age well so there is an argument for keeping the team as is and letting Barnes, Barrett, & Quickley take us as far as they can.

[HumbleRen]

Not to keep him but to regain some leverage and value in trade talks, sure.

Long term, ideally you want a more balanced line up to play defence while keeping your offence.


IQ
RJ
3&D that can handle the ball
Scottie
Center

[ishoy123]

Extend then evaluate (and likely trade) is the best outcome. There will still be robust demand for Siakam at a max deal, as most of the potential trade partners would be maxing Siakam anyways.

As a side note, the discourse about teams not trading ANY half-decent prospects for Siakam is ridiculous (Kuminga, Jarace Walker). You're not going to get a 2-time all-nba player in his prime without giving up any prospects.

[tecumseh18]

How tradeable is LaVine on a similar deal? How tradeable is Jaylen Brown on HIS humungous deal? Not very? Then no. Overpaying non-superstars is a recipe for failure.

At his current salary with the rising cap, Pascal is clearly tradeable. But north of $40 mill AAV for a guy who will be 30 to start next season is too much.

Finally, it's time to move on with the "new core". I'm confident the Raptors will get the prospects they clearly crave in exchange for Pascal's expiring. Not JJ or Murray, but some young talented forwards (see sig).

[AbC?]

Absolutely. It’s not a super max and the cap is constantly going up. He’s having his most efficient season of his career. Can adjust his game to scale up/down.

Whether you trade him or decide to keep him, he should have already been extended.

[ChillRelaxDude]

I'd be completely fine with Pascal being a career Raptor.

I quite like our starting line-up right now and see no problem having him and Barnes playing together. The talk of timelines doesn't mean anything to me. The only timeline that matters is the years associated with Barnes' RFA contract years. We need meaningful games for him to grow and want to be here.

A team with Pascal, a few backup positions addressed, and internal growth from IQ, SB, and RJ will be a really good team next year.

[Rapsfan07]

Love Pascal and would hate to see him go. He's Top 5 all time favorite Raptor for me.

But I can't help but feel like signing him to the max will yield diminishing returns. The truth is that once the ink dries, Pascal's value is not going to be the same as it was or as it is right now. Not only will there be inevitable questions or concerns about whether or not he'll be able to live up the deal, but he also will become even more difficult trade simply because he makes so much. That number will only continue to get larger as time goes by.

Meanwhile, Pascal does make us a better team in the short term but if the future is BBQ, how is being better in the shorter term beneficial in the long term for the guys we say are our core? Or perhaps better phrased - how does it help us build a contender around/with BBQ if we have Pascal on a max contract? We won't be able to sign much help from the FA market (not that it was ever a huge source of talent for us in the first place), we're not going to be getting quality picks (or worse still, we trade them for marginal upgrades over the course of Pascal's tenure) and there really isn't any other young quality talent on this team outside of BBQ.

So outside of internal development (this would require you believe at least one or two of BBQ can/will become a 1A/B superstar in the league) how can we move forward towards eventual contention with this core while still keeping Siakam? History also tells us that if we're lucky, Siakam will keep up this level of production throughout 60% or so of a 5 year deal. That's only 3 years from now, which doesn't give us a whole lot of time to sort this out. You also run the risk that after year 3, this contract becomes immovable, thereby eating up more of BBQ's time.

All of that to say - we can't let him walk for nothing of course but I also don't think its best to hold onto him long term. So to answer your question, in order of preference I would say 1) Trade before the deadline, 2) 4 year max 3) 5 year max.

Really though, it should be Option 1.

[bboyskinnylegs]

I would not. I think we find the best deal we can by the deadline. Hopefully that can net us at least one meaningful young piece to build with on a cost-controlled deal.

[dhackett1565]

Absolutely. Extend now and see how it goes with this core after a full training camp together with a non-rookie coach, make a real long term decision next deadline when you have Pascal locked in with term and can trade him for real value.

As I'm sure the front office is currently thinking, the only exception is if you get a trade offer now that looks as good as what you would hope to get in the future. So I suspect the front office is heading into the deadline evaluating whether any such deal is out there, and if not, the extension is likely the plan from there. Ideally you extend rather than let it go all the way to free agency, but the risk you take waiting so long is whether Pascal is open to it. It sounds like he still is, though whether that's true a month from now after the deadline is yet to be determined.

[tdotrep2]

can we afford to? siakam 45, scottie 40, quickley 25 min, rj 30, jak 20... these are just the starting 5

[Jadoogar]

If it's between the max or losing him for nothing, i would begrudgingly resign him.

[Tor_Raps]

The going rate in the nba for a player like Siakam is a max contract. People keep thinking we're talking about the supermax or its only reserved for superstars.

There are like 35 max contracts handed out in the nba. It's a no brainer for a guy who's been on the ALL NBA team.

[everdiso]

Yes.

1. I'm confident the recent siakam is the real one. Everybody looks better now with a real lineup in place. OG looks better in NY too. It's been a **** up last couple years in raptorville.

2. "saving" $50m on Siakam doesn't actually give us $50m in savings to spend elsewhere.

3. Siakam probably has more trade value with a max contract than he does as a free agent. He also should see his value increase as he plays more in this new lineup with all the scoring support. The current rumoured poo poo platter trades aren't enticing in the least.

4. Ages 30-32 aren't old. Age 33 is kinda old but not even really. Every contending team right now has players as old or order in their rotation right now.

[Appostis]

Super max? No.

Max or slightly below it? Yes.

Guy is 29. Resign him and come next year if the team is not working as hoped, make the move

[LoveMyRaps]

Yes.

We're very good with him.

Spicy BBQ > BBQ

[links135]

I wouldn't hate letting him walk, when he sat our offence didn't skip a beat, just we had more turnovers on a B2B against a good team

[Raps in 4]

Only if the alternative is him walking.

[Spida888]

Extend him ONLY if you can't trade him for good prospects/picks which may not be possible since his camp is turning down to re-sign with other teams.

[Parataxis]

Remember four years ago when 'everybody' in the NBA thought that Siakam was overpaid? Remember how that turned out?

Max contracts, despite the name, aren't just for top-5 players. Siakam on a max is absolutely tradable. Yes, if we get past the deadline and he's still on the team, absolutely you work to extend him on a max offer.

[mrdressup]

Why? He's expendable and we clearly need more pieces. There's no clear road ahead for deepening our roster with him still around. If you keep him you continue to have to worry about him performing beyond age 30 and how to move his contract at some point. It will become more and more obvious he has to be traded with every passing year + he'll continue to have a lot of gravity on offense for us (possibly at closing time). Now's the time to hurt a little and move forward with a younger team that doesn't carry any traces of the horrible way to play basketball that we've seen in the last 3 years, imo.