Gary Trent Jr. adapting to a defensive stopper role

[disoblige]

I disagree. He is one of our worse defender. DTRG approves this.

[Starr1]

Gary is garbage and should not be brought back next season

[Randle McMurphy]

GTJ a defensive stopper?

ahahaha

[MainEvent]

elite at shutting himself down on fast breaks

[Tha Cynic]

Plus 8 when GTJ was on the floor. Only plus all game. Not sure why we're picking on him lol

[Tom_Foolery]

Plus 8 when GTJ was on the floor. Only plus all game. Not sure why we're picking on him lol

Did you actually watch the game? lol

Blown by multiple times, Too many failed attempts to leak out for a fast break before securing the rebound, and of course the shot decided not to fall tonight.

[Dalek]

GTJ a defensive stopper?

ahahaha

Well on a team like this he is. Like I said, he is adapting to this role and which is needed because Quickley hasn't really stepped his defense.

Overall it is not a great defensive club at all.

We have Poeltl, Barnes and Trent Jr. Ochai is the best bench defender.

[Kingsway_fan]

Masai should be crucified should he extend him...

[Ackshun]

Masai should be crucified should he extend him...

Oh my

[Rapsin6]

Defensive stopper? C’mon man. He hasn’t kept anyone in front of him for 3 years now. Suddenly his guy has 2 bad games in a row and he’s a stopper. There are metrics to check to see what a great stopper he is. Probably right there with OG. SMH.

If what we’ve seen from Gradey over the last month is who Gradey is, he already does everything better than Gary and needs to start next year. Since Gary can’t bother to try unless he starts, he needs to go away.

[2019nbachamps]

The question is simple: can we replace his production for under $20m a year? The answer is yes. So he needs to go.

[Johnny Bball]

I disagree. He is one of our worse defender. DTRG approves this.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/raptor-drtg-leaders-by-player-this-season

I think you will see that's a rather useless stat individually if you look at comparisons within the team.

But Trent did have a relatively **** game last night, which just figures.

[MessiahUjiri]

We don’t get any free cap space from letting him walk, since we’ll be operating over the cap, assuming they pickup the Brown option.

If we're operating over the cap this summer, then why give away Dennis for nothing? If Raptors' can't use Brown's salary in a deal at the draft, he's not being picked up. It would be insane to pay him 23 mill next season. And so tempting to take advantage of IQ's low cap hold. Also, by extending or resigning Kelly O. for a modest number, we'll eliminate his 18 mill cap hold.

We'll have space to offer Malik Monk or whoever a fair deal.

If I were to guess, it’s something close to his current salary

Seth Curry is making 4 mill per year. How much more is Gary worth than that?

It’s a fair question. Browns decision date is earlier than Jul 4, right? So we have to have a wink-wink free agency deal completed ahead of the legal rules in order to determine not to pick up Browns option.

I guess we could technically decline his option and re-sign him also, but that makes him open to joining a contender. Teams like Orlando and Detroit will gladly overpay him. He has career connections with Detroit, and Orlando is a warmer weather/lower tax/more winning combo.


We have to be really sure about declining his option, and what the option B is in case we come up empty handed.

[tecumseh18]

We don’t get any free cap space from letting him walk, since we’ll be operating over the cap, assuming they pickup the Brown option.

If we're operating over the cap this summer, then why give away Dennis for nothing? If Raptors' can't use Brown's salary in a deal at the draft, he's not being picked up. It would be insane to pay him 23 mill next season. And so tempting to take advantage of IQ's low cap hold. Also, by extending or resigning Kelly O. for a modest number, we'll eliminate his 18 mill cap hold.

We'll have space to offer Malik Monk or whoever a fair deal.

If I were to guess, it’s something close to his current salary

Seth Curry is making 4 mill per year. How much more is Gary worth than that?

It’s a fair question. Browns decision date is earlier than Jul 4, right? So we have to have a wink-wink free agency deal completed ahead of the legal rules in order to determine not to pick up Browns option.

I guess we could technically decline his option and re-sign him also, but that makes him open to joining a contender. Teams like Orlando and Detroit will gladly overpay him. He has career connections with Detroit, and Orlando is a warmer weather/lower tax/more winning combo.


We have to be really sure about declining his option, and what the option B is in case we come up empty handed.

My guess is that the Warriors are sick of Wiggins' nonsense (more "personal reasons" today) and will pay us to take him off their hands in exchange for Brown. Wiggins' deal ends in 2027, which is a good summer to have lot of cap space.

[manjusaka]

If we're operating over the cap this summer, then why give away Dennis for nothing? If Raptors' can't use Brown's salary in a deal at the draft, he's not being picked up. It would be insane to pay him 23 mill next season. And so tempting to take advantage of IQ's low cap hold. Also, by extending or resigning Kelly O. for a modest number, we'll eliminate his 18 mill cap hold.

We'll have space to offer Malik Monk or whoever a fair deal.



Seth Curry is making 4 mill per year. How much more is Gary worth than that?

It’s a fair question. Browns decision date is earlier than Jul 4, right? So we have to have a wink-wink free agency deal completed ahead of the legal rules in order to determine not to pick up Browns option.

I guess we could technically decline his option and re-sign him also, but that makes him open to joining a contender. Teams like Orlando and Detroit will gladly overpay him. He has career connections with Detroit, and Orlando is a warmer weather/lower tax/more winning combo.


We have to be really sure about declining his option, and what the option B is in case we come up empty handed.

My guess is that the Warriors are sick of Wiggins' nonsense (more "personal reasons" today) and will pay us to take him off their hands in exchange for Brown. Wiggins' deal ends in 2027, which is a good summer to have lot of cap space.

We can trade Brown on the draft date.

[tecumseh18]

I disagree. He is one of our worse defender. DTRG approves this.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/raptor-drtg-leaders-by-player-this-season

I think you will see that's a rather useless stat individually if you look at comparisons within the team.

But Trent did have a relatively **** game last night, which just figures.

Oddly, GTJ was our only plus player (+8) in 33 minutes last night. Gradey was our biggest minus.

[BetterCallSaul]

Gary is more of a gambler than a disciplined defender, from whenever I’ve seen him. He can get steals but it hasn’t always meant defensive stopper.

Kinda like the opposite style of Bruce Brown in some ways. Brown plays more physical and gets down in his stance.



I’m still of the opinion that we should re-sign Gary, if he can come around the same as his current value ($16-18M/year). It might end up being another 2+1 deal with him.

I hate the gambling for steals but he has been more conservative lately and it has helped the team more. I just think he is pretty comfortable in this type of role.

Cost-wise it is difficult to imagine him at the same level in a thin free agent class. He is still over 40% from three and if proves himself as a defender. Toronto doing a longer 4 year deal might be a good option as he probably wants a home long term.

We won't offer him to a 4 year deal. Masai doesn't hand those out. I think he would be willing to take a reasonable deal to stay in Toronto. It seems like he doesn't want to move and he's happy here for the most part.

Gary will always be infuriating to watch because he has no passing or ball handling ability for a guard and his defensive effort wains. However, if he's willing to get paid as a 6-7th man range then he's a welcome piece. I don't think he should get paid near starter money because he's not a starting calibre guard in the NBA.

[BetterCallSaul]

Offer him the MLE. If he takes it, great. If not, oh well. He's a legit rotation player who can spot start if you need him to. My feeling is he gets ~$15m/yr from some team hard up for shooting that has a bunch of cap space (DET, ORL, etc).

you can't low ball players - that won't look good in the eyes of agents. if you value him over the space under luxury, then offer him a fair deal. if there's other things you'd rather do then relinquish his cap hold and he can go wherever he wants.

i think if we relinquish all bird's rights, don't pick up brown's option and just keep iq's hold, we have around $40 mil in space. ko will probably eat up around $10-11 mil of that which allows us to use $25-30 mil on player(s) and then re-sign quickley. a portion of that could go to gary.

we still need a roster of 10 quality nba players. gary may not be great but he's still a quality nba player. so keeping him is not a bad idea at fair market value - which should probably be around his current deal (18-20 mil). we can offer him a 2+1 or something like that.

it's tough to find players in the free agent market that's as good as him and willing to come here. maybe we can trade for one but i don't see many options either.

You think fair market value for Gary is 18-20M? That's what Poeltl makes. I think everyone should try and remember how horrible Gary has been for long stretches the last year and a half. Aside from hitting completely wide open threes, he typically has offered nothing else.
He has been on an uptick recently and his activity level on defence has improved. But that alone doesn't make him worth $18-20M again. I wouldn't go over $15-16M and if the market for him is more than that then I'd rather not spend it stuck with him for another 2 years.

[ConSarnit]

i think if we relinquish all bird's rights, don't pick up brown's option and just keep iq's hold, we have around $40 mil in space. ko will probably eat up around $10-11 mil of that which allows us to use $25-30 mil on player(s) and then re-sign quickley. a portion of that could go to gary.

we still need a roster of 10 quality nba players. gary may not be great but he's still a quality nba player. so keeping him is not a bad idea at fair market value - which should probably be around his current deal (18-20 mil). we can offer him a 2+1 or something like that.

it's tough to find players in the free agent market that's as good as him and willing to come here. maybe we can trade for one but i don't see many options either.

Why would we waive Brown? That seems like a tremendous waste of a guy (who in theory) should be wanted by multiple teams. Who are we going to use that money he frees up on?

Obviously we'd only do if a plan/deal is already in place. But I'm sure we can get more out of that 23 mill next season than blowing it on Bruce f'n Brown. Especially now that Ochai has emerged as our defensive stopper off the bench. Raptors are trying to win, sooner rather than later.

How is $18-20m Trent’s fair market value? He had to pick up his option this year because he had no market, at least not anywhere near what he’s currently making. I can’t see how Trent has done anything to improve his value in the eyes of the league. He’s made no strides offensively and his defense has probably slipped from when he first got here. We paid him $18m partially due to upside. That upside is gone. If we’re going to keep Trent it has to make sense for us too. He’s probably the most supplantable rotation guy (Dick, Agbaji or a top 6 pick could take his spot as soon as next year). If we keep him he needs to be on a deal that is a) fair for an 7th-8th man or b) tradable. Trent at $18m off the bench doesn’t make a lot of sense when he’s the guy most likely to get knocked down in the rotation.

100%. I guess I can reconcile myself to 14 mill on a 2+1, just above the MLE. But not if we can do better in free agency.

I think we all want to do better in free agency but our history shows that never happens. Schroder was out best FA signing ever (production + contract) and we just dumped him for absolutely nothing.

I would much rather take the chance on keeping Brown because the outcomes with him are probably better. We can either trade him for value to a contending team (more contenders will have draft assets available at the '24 draft), use his large expiring to take on assets in a salary dump, or use or own assets to trade for a long term piece (if we see fit). Free agency probably goes like this: overpay for anyone willing to come here and that player becomes a bad contract (or we can dump them for nothing like Schroder). I put the odds of us creating a positive value asset in free agency at very low. Letting Brown expire (worst case) > getting stuck with overpaid free agent, imo. The Brown situation might even just resolve itself around the draft.

Just looking at the FA pool it seems unlikely we can do better than Trent/Brown/Olynyk. A backup PG could probably help but that type of player might be available for the room exception (Lowry, Delon, Reggie Jackson?). We won't get any of the top guys in FA and then we're just looking at a pool of guys who are at the exact same level as Trent and Brown.

Maybe I have Raptors free agency PTSD but I generally believe free agency is the least effective way to build this team given our history. I also don't think this team is really going anywhere next year so win-now signings are of less importance to me. If we're on the development path we might find ourselves having to carve out playing time for a bunch of young guys (Dick, Agbaji, top 6 pick?, #16). If that's the case I'd rather have moveable vets (Trent @ $13m, Brown expiring) should they become superfluous.

[islandboy53]

It’s a fair question. Browns decision date is earlier than Jul 4, right? So we have to have a wink-wink free agency deal completed ahead of the legal rules in order to determine not to pick up Browns option.

I guess we could technically decline his option and re-sign him also, but that makes him open to joining a contender. Teams like Orlando and Detroit will gladly overpay him. He has career connections with Detroit, and Orlando is a warmer weather/lower tax/more winning combo.


We have to be really sure about declining his option, and what the option B is in case we come up empty handed.

My guess is that the Warriors are sick of Wiggins' nonsense (more "personal reasons" today) and will pay us to take him off their hands in exchange for Brown. Wiggins' deal ends in 2027, which is a good summer to have lot of cap space.

We can trade Brown on the draft date.

Yes, we can, but we have to exercise his option to do so. I continue to be convinced that we will do this, and move him on draft weekend. For example, to Houston for Landale and Tate's expirings and a 1st. We are not taking on 3 years and $84 million of Wiggins.