Where the Toronto Raptors stand ahead of the 2025 NBA trade deadline

Today is Dec.15.

To non-NBA fans, it’s just a random Sunday 10 days away from Christmas. To the die-hards, it’s the unofficial start of the NBA trade season.

For the uninitiated, Dec.15 is one of the first key dates on the 2024-2025 NBA calendar, as it’s the first day players who signed free agent contracts this past offseason become trade eligible. We’ve already seen multiple trades be reportedly agreed to before the date even arrived, with Thomas Bryant being shipped to Indiana and former Raptor Dennis Schroder heading out west to Golden State, per ESPN’s Shams Charania.

With new trade restrictions implemented, it remains to be seen how active the association will be between now and the deadline on Feb.6, but it’s a pretty good start.

How active will the Toronto Raptors be? What are some realistic possibilities? Should they be sellers, buyers, or neither? We’ll look at all these questions and more within this piece.

First, the boring stuff, the salary cap. Yuck numbers, I know, but it’s important when evaluating where the Raptors stand. The Raptors’ payroll is currently a little over $167-million, which is above the salary cap but below the first tax apron by roughly $10.5-million. That’s a good amount of wiggle room, but Toronto could create even more flexibility if they wanted by waiving Bruno Fernando’s $2,087,519 salary, whose contract isn’t fully guaranteed until Jan.10, a little under a month before the deadline.

With all that being said, the team at max could take about $12.5-million back in any trade(s) while staying below the tax (which they surely will want to do) if they choose to waive Fernando. But what sort of trades would Masai Ujiri, Bobby Webster and co. have interest in?

The least likely outcome would be the Raptors going out shopping and acquiring impactful players. While Toronto certainly has assets and picks to put together competitive packages, the Raptors are battling injuries and sit with a 7-19 record, the fourth worst in the NBA. While players like Brandon Ingram, Zach LaVine, and Kyle Kuzma have all likely been made available, the message from the organization since before the season has been about patience and internal growth.

So if they aren’t buying, then they must be selling, right? Well, yes and no. While the team certainly won’t sell off pieces as aggressively as they did last year, i.e., Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and Schroder, there definitely could still be some movement. While it’s hard to see the Raptors parting with most of the roster given how young and inexperienced it is, the five oldest players on the roster, Garrett Temple, Kelly Olynyk, Chris Boucher, Bruce Brown Jr. and Jakob Poeltl, could all be available given the direction the Raptors clearly are going in.

Right off the bat, the 38-year-old Temple holds more value to Toronto than anyone else in the association. A real vet’s vet, Temple has been spoken highly about by seemingly everyone in the organization, and the Raps would probably want to keep him around anyway.

Poeltl is also someone who it’s hard to see being moved, but not for lack of interest. Amid a career year, the 29-year-old’s value around the league has surely grown to some degree, and Toronto should be able to get more or at least get back what they paid to the San Antonio Spurs two years ago (Khem Birch, first-round pick, two second-round picks). Though Poeltl doesn’t necessarily fit the Raptors timeline, his skillset is needed as there would be no other true, ready-to-play big on the roster, especially if Fernando is waived.

Canadians Boucher and Olynyk fit the same mould as veteran bench tweener bigs. The 31-year-old Boucher seemingly would generate more interest than Olynyk, given he’s been healthy the majority of the year, is younger, and is making less money for fewer years. It always takes two to tango, and even if the Raptors were motivated to trade one or both of them, there may not be a market.

Brown seems to be the most likely candidate to be traded out of the Dinos’ veteran group. The 28-year-old has been in trade rumours since the moment he was acquired in the Siakam trade and played a vital role on a championship team. The problem is Brown hasn’t played this season after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in late September and wasn’t particularly good when he competed last year because of that knee. The 2023 NBA champion is also on a whopper of a $23-million contract, and it will be interesting to see what his market is like if there is any at all.

The third approach would be to stand pat and/or improve on the fringes. Toronto did a lot of the work last season, so a deadline that sees Canada’s team essentially rent out their cap space to take back some larger contracts in exchange for some picks could be the move.

Overall, a realistic outcome could be to do just that: take on some cap to acquire more picks while trading Brown and possibly one of the bench bigs.

There are a bunch of possibilities for how the Raptors’ deadline can go, and whatever happens, will ultimately help shape how Toronto finishes out the year. The team sits in the basement of the league, is dealing with a bunch of injuries, and is seemingly contempt with getting a high draft pick in a loaded 2025 class. Whatever path they chose, however, will signal what the organization’s true intentions are going forward.

The post Where the Toronto Raptors stand ahead of the 2025 NBA trade deadline first appeared on Raptors Republic.