Will Trent be held out to keep his caphold/qualifying offer lower?

[Pooh_Jeter]

There is 0 chance they have agreed to any sort of deal. No agent would ever tentatively agree to a contract in a scenario like this.

The most likely scenario is that Trent does have an injury and it's mutually beneficial for him to stay out until he is 100% recovered and there is no chance for re-aggravation.

[everdiso]

Package him with Lowry in any deal to land a real scoring wing. Trent is no bueno.

[bboyskinnylegs]

I don't think it would matter to Trent either way since he's going to make significantly more than his caphold regardless, and it's not like holding him out for the rest of this awful season will have any bearing on his contract offers this summer. He likely has some minor injury and all involved parties are fine with sitting him - we've essentially thrown the towel on this season from a competitive standpoint, we maintain some extra capspace to potentially help with signing FAs should we choose to, and Gary doesn't unnecessarily put himself at risk of injury heading into what will be the biggest payday of his career so far.

[ItsDanger]

Don't get too attached, if we land certain players in the draft, you're not paying a lot of money to Trent to come off the bench.

[visionquest]

I assumed after Trent's big games he had a series of stinkers which might have tanked his value.

He seems quite content with sitting so clearly its in his best interests.

[Johnny Bball]

The amount of Trent's cap hold is only relevant if the Raps plan to use their cap space. But doing so means renouncing Kyle's massive cap hold and the possibility of a sign and trade and all options/guarantees on other players except probably Boucher. Doing that and minimizing Trent's cap hold through service time manipulation gives them the flexibility to spend around 25 mill.

But - Raps can never attract free agents, so why gut the team like that? The bench has been an up and down affair this season, but it would be hard to simply cut loose Bembry, Watson and Watanabe. I think the most logical thing is to re-sign everybody, including Lowry, whether to stay or to trade, picking up a C with the MLE, and resign Birch with the Bi-annual exception (3.8 mill)

Birch is obviously a priority signing, if only on the "bird in the hand" principle. But if Birch requires more than 3.8 mill, then Raps will either have to use part or all of the MLE to sign him, or be a cap space team. Then they could use the Room exception of $5 mill. But if Birch requires more than $5 mill, then it will either have to be out of cap space (so no Kyle) or the MLE.

My often-expressed hope is that the MLE can be used to bring in a serviceable C like Olynyk or Theis, or Serge. So I'd rather not sign Khem with that. Maybe Khem and Gasol can split the MLE.

If we keep playing Birch at 30min+, he is going to cost more than 5M. Lowry is making sure of that by making Birch look like Ibaka out there.

So are we all in agreement that Lowry's cap hold is definitely renounced? Otherwise all the moves last offseason, plus this Trent service manipulation, are for nothing. The moment Lowry's cap hold is renounced, we will have effectively lost another asset for nothing - re-signing Lowry with cap space would not make up for it.

Speaking of Ibaka: he has not played since March 14. I don't think either Raptors nor Ibaka wants a re-union next season.

Has to be. Why keep his cap hold then sign him for less. And if you had to re-sign him for say 15 m,il, you would use Trent to go over the cap.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Since when was the NBA Major league baseball?

[C_Money]

Don't get too attached, if we land certain players in the draft, you're not paying a lot of money to Trent to come off the bench.

Maybe if we land the 1st overall pick but otherwise Trent Jr’s gotta be re-signed. We traded a very good player in Norm so he could help us next year.

[JN]

Will our play in games count against the 57 minute threshold?
I assume they are considered playoff games and not regular season games.

[Tor_Raps]

Trent seems fine with it. Likely when they made the trade, the Raptors agreed with his agent what they plan to offer, and the strategy of keeping a lower cap hold.

Probably Trent doesn't want to get major injury before getting paid.

Exactly. He was playing great as a starter and then struggled a lot as a bench player on this team. There's no way he's doing anything to help the raptors when he has no clue what his market will be this offseason. This will be his first big deal and will be going where the money is.